Beneath
by ninepen
Summary: Loki sits in a prison cell and waits to hear his fate. If luck turns his way, that fate could provide him with another opportunity to finally earn the respect, admiration, and power he covets. He doesn't dare dream he could return to Midgard. There he's met a number of people of interest…but there is only one he's vowed to visit. If Loki falls again, does another abyss await him?
1. Prologue

_Please note: there are now officially "spoilers" to developments in this story in the reviews, so if you're a review-reader, I'd recommend you avoid reading others' reviews until you've read the whole thing (whatever "the whole thing" is when you read this). On the other hand, please don't let that stop you from *writing* a review!  
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_The please-nobody-sue-me part: I have no claims to anything in the Marvel universe...whether mentioned in this prologue or not. I make no profit off this. I am grateful to all those who gave us_ Thor_ and _The Avengers_ which provides such an amazing canvas on which we can paint our own imaginations._

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**Beneath**

Prologue

Not so long ago, barely an eyeblink ago in the rather grand scheme of things, he had been a king.

Fists pressed to hearts and knees touched the floor when he entered, or passed by, or exited. His friends – his brother's friends – had done the same, despite their obvious distaste at his presence on the throne. His own mother had addressed him as "my king." The staff, the symbol and indeed source of so much power, had been handed to him by one of his father's – his! – guards, and he had wielded it effectively, with knowledge of its power and with confidence in his ability to control it.

He had been so close to achieving an evolution in the order of the realms that would have left his father in awe, when and if he awoke from his deep sleep. His father would have returned to rule a realm far more powerful than the one he'd left, and to a son who had erased all thoughts of him being an unworthy distant second to the other. Or, had his father not awoken, he would have already launched a reign that would outlast and outshine the previous.

He'd thought he had all the time in the world, either way.

For a brief moment he permitted himself to indulge in a fantasy, imagined himself walking down that grand hall, while the citizenry cheered him on. He would never degrade himself by egging them on as if he were at some sporting event being watched by mead-swilling fans, but would instead stride solemnly toward the throne, his back straight as a rod, his head held high and helmet gleaming. He would drop to his knees, set the helmet aside, and bow his head in reverence for his father and for the event about to take place. His father would look down at him tenderly, then stand, clang his staff on the marble floor to command everyone's attention, and say in a stern but proud voice, "My beloved son. You have proven yourself worthy. I regret that I did not recognize this sooner. I am sorry that I failed to appreciate you and saw you only as a shadow of-"

He gritted his teeth. Enough fantasy. He had to deal with reality, and that was a different matter entirely.

Never had the expression "so close, and yet so far" felt more appropriate.

He was a master strategist, but somewhere, somehow, he'd made a mistake. Failed to anticipate all possible outcomes, or take into account all variables. He wasn't sure how it happened, or at what precise point events had begun to spiral out of his control. Everything had been developing perfectly, in fact, far more perfectly than he'd ever imagined. Perhaps he'd simply moved too quickly, been too eager to take advantage of unexpected opportunities without thinking them through, grabbed for things he should have reached out carefully for. Yes, he'd grown eager, impatient, intoxicated by his own success. He had acted too quickly to sufficiently plan and analyze. And he'd paid a heavy price.

Not so long ago he'd been a king.

Today he was a prisoner.

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_I deliberately left the prologue devoid of "proper noun" references because I'm really into the universality of the relationship themes in _Thor_; I wanted to try to strip it down a little. Chapter 1 "Prison" brings us more straightforwardly to proper nouns, including Asgard, where Loki is not a happy camper._

_Here is a little teaser from a later chapter:  
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[Loki] looked at himself in the mirror, only his eyes visible through the goggles and everything else hidden from view. At least he didn't have to be concerned about anyone recognizing him like this. Over his shoulder in the reflection he saw Jane was repacking her clothing. He turned and approached her.

"How do I look?" he asked.

[...] Jane glanced up at him quickly. "Pretty much like everybody else here," she said.

"I suppose so," he agreed. _Appearances can deceive_, he thought. They had no idea they were letting a monster into their midst, and dressing it up to look just like them.


	2. (1) Prison

_So, this is my first tentative official foray into fan fiction. I hope some fellow Thor and Loki fans will enjoy it. I would appreciate comments and be glad to respond._**  
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_In this chapter, Loki learns what his punishment is to be.  
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**Beneath**

Chapter One – Prison

Loki swung his legs over the cot and sat up. His body ached literally from the top of his head to the soles of his feet from the thrashing he'd taken from that mindless green monster, who'd apparently managed to gain more control of himself than Loki had anticipated. Humiliating.

A small multi-legged creature scurried across the stone floor near his feet, and he lifted one soft-soled foot and slammed it down hard, immediately sucking in a breath at the pain. This abominable little creature had a series of razor sharp spines running along its back as a defense mechanism, and Loki was not wearing the thick-soled heavy boots he normally sported. And his feet already hurt anyway. He pulled off the ridiculous shoe and one by one plucked the spines from the ball of his foot, looking with disgust at the tiny drops of blood that were left behind. The spines were poisonous, but were meant to harm predator creatures tempted to have a meal, not full-grown Aesir. He would have little more than annoying muscle aches to contend with, muscle aches which he would likely not even notice given all of his other injuries.

Suddenly it occurred to him – it almost always still occurred to him "suddenly" – to ask why this creature's spines should have the same effect on him as on everyone else around him. They were of this realm, and he was not. He was full-grown, but he was not an Aesir. What would happen to a Frost Giant into whom one of these bugs released its spines? A nasty smile played at the corner of his lips. Its little razors would probably shatter under the force of the Frost Giant's own icy defenses before they could penetrate the blue skin.

Loki put his slipper-shoe back on, studying his foot carefully as he did so. There was blue in the flesh now, to be sure, but this was from severe bruising and burst capillaries caused by repeatedly being slammed into a concrete slab. Even an Aesir did not recover from such a thing overnight. But why wasn't he blue? Why did he look the way he did? He didn't look anything like that gullible wretch Laufey, but he didn't look anything like Odin either. If Odin had used magic to make him look like an Asgardian, why hadn't he used that same magic to make him look like he was Odinson, instead of No One's Son?

Loki's whole body burned with hatred for Odin, a hatred that burned so intensely it consumed all else and coherent thought ceased.

"Loki, it's Thor. May I enter?"

The voice sounded as though it came from within the room, and indeed it did, through Odin's elaborately concocted security system. A heavy cloak of magic surrounded the entirety of his small stone prison cell, on all four sides, floor and ceiling, holding equally strongly in centers and corners – Loki knew, because he'd tested it almost immediately upon being deposited here. Nothing could come or go without Odin's, Thor's, or the chief jailor's say; not even his mother had been granted the ability to pass through the cloak unaided for fear her heart would be too soft toward her wayward son. Odin's system also somehow prevented Loki from using any form of magic himself. He could have healed all his wounds had Odin not taken that particular measure…and he also would have devised a plan for escape by now. He had no magic. He had no weapon. He still had his cunning, and had spent hours devising ways to get the upper hand during those brief moments of an open door, when the chief jailer brought his meals, but as he'd gone through the permutations of cause and effect he'd realized the best possible outcome would be him killing the chief jailer and a new chief jailer delivering his meals. He'd thought about doing this anyway, simply to make a statement that he should not be underestimated or thought weak, but in the end decided it was too pointless to be worth the effort.

"Loki?"

"No," Loki answered. He wasn't in the mood for a chat, particularly not with Thor, but neither did he actually care much if he entered. Thor had tried to engage him in conversation frequently during the first week of his imprisonment, less so in this, the second, after he found Loki unwilling to respond to him or even acknowledge his presence. For the last two days he hadn't tried at all.

"Loki…" The voice was both chiding and pleading. Loki knew that Thor was full of conflicted emotions toward him – he missed the shadow that Loki had been, and would gladly kill the man he had become.

Looking up at the magically-sealed door, Loki wondered how long it would take before Thor ignored him and strode through anyway. He found the situation mildly interesting – and far more interesting than anything else since he'd been led to this cell and finally had his chains and gag removed. Thor wasn't used to being told "no." Certainly Loki hadn't, not until recently, not for most of his one thousand years of life. Thor had said, "Let's go," and Loki had followed him without asking where or why.

This was the first time Thor had asked permission to enter the cell instead of just announcing his intent to do so; on the first day he'd simply barged in and begun yelling. Since then there'd been yelling, pleading, forced remembrances of happier times, and at least once Loki was certain Thor had shed tears, but he refused to turn his head to confirm it, curious though he was to see tears where they so seldom appeared.

"Loki, please, brother, we must discuss your situation."

Loki rolled his eyes. His _situation_. Such an innocuous, empty word. "Well, by all means, then, enter," he said, figuring otherwise he would have to listen to that disembodied voice begging with him all day. "Mildly interesting" wasn't sufficient to make him willing to endure that.

He listened as Thor commanded the heavy stone door to open and magical locks tumbled. The sound of his own voice had sounded vaguely odd; until today he hadn't heard it for nearly two weeks. Not since his mother's first visit, when he'd made the calculated decision to address her as "_Mother_," to let her know with the tiniest bit of speech possible who she was, who she remained, to him. She had sat beside him, sobbed, and held him to her, alternating between patting and rubbing his back. Loki allowed it but made no attempt to comfort her or return her embrace.

The memory shook him. He cleared his throat in the last instant before the door swung open and Thor stepped inside. He was dressed casually, in a simple light blue shirt and unadorned dark brown long leather jacket and pants. His beard was a little fuller, making him look even more like his father. Loki's eyes drifted closed. He strongly suspected that even had Thor been wearing the standard prisoners' long gray cotton tunic and matching pants that Loki wore, he would still have looked like a king.

_You look like a king._ Loki vividly remembered telling Thor that. He'd meant it, that and everything else he'd said then. At least he'd mostly meant it. He _had_ looked forward to Thor's coronation. He just preferred to continue looking forward, rather than slam his face right into it on that particular day.

A simple desk and chair stood on the opposite side of the cell; Loki heard the chair scraping the floor as Thor pulled it out and took a seat.

"I have been having words with our father and his advisors."

Retorts popped into Loki's mind but he held his tongue.

"This cannot continue."

_You can release me any time you like_, he thought.

"Loki, will you say nothing? Not a word, for the rest of your life? I can't bear it now any more than I could when we were younger."

Thor, Loki thought, had indeed never had the patience for silence. Loki had once given him the silent treatment for an entire year, and Thor had nearly driven himself mad over it. Those memories almost – almost – made him smile, but in an instant they were pushed away by a terrible gripping pain in his gut. He hunched over and grunted.

"What is the matter, are you all right?" Thor asked, but remained seated, wary. _I know you want to, Thor, but you mustn't trust him_, Odin had warned him.

Loki straightened himself up and forced the pain out of his expression.

"Tell me right now, Loki, or I'll-"

"Or you'll what?" Loki asked, finally meeting his brother's eyes.

Thor took a deep breath and consciously pushed himself back in his chair. "If you are ill, tell me, and I will send for a healer."

Loki pursed his lips. He'd already spoken, and he realized he had grown tired of maintaining his silence. He may have once given Thor the silent treatment for a full year, but during that year he hadn't been a prisoner locked in a cell; he could escape Thor's incessant entreaties any time he wanted and there were plenty of other people he could talk to instead. "I stepped on a firegrub."

Thor lifted his head, then frowned but nevertheless relaxed, relieved that there was neither a real emergency nor a feigned one. "That was foolish, brother," he said softly.

"Return my boots to me and the problem will not recur." This time it was Thor who remained silent, so Loki continued. "Regardless, the vermin will not be bothering me again, and this will pass." He shifted his position on the cot as a spasm shot up his back. He felt the poison more than he expected to, but the pain was still little more than an annoyance. "But you didn't bother me again to inquire about a firegrub."

Thor shook his head. "Our father is in a quandary. You have placed him in a difficult situation."

_That word again_. "Yes, I'm sure it must be incredibly difficult for him. My heart goes out to him. In fact, it bleeds for him."

"Why must you speak in jest about everyone? About everything? Are you no longer capable of compassion? He's your father, Loki. Don't try to say he's not. He's been your father almost since your first breath. How can you not see that he loves you?"

"Does he? Even now?" Loki asked immediately. But the words were a challenge, another taunt, not some desperate childish plea.

"Yes, even now. But…he's very angry. And disappointed."

"Well, then, don't delay," Loki said, jerking up from the bed, startling Thor. "Tell me, what is my punishment? I'm guessing it will have to be something quite imaginative. It'll have to top chaining me up to let that giant serpent drip its venom down over my face, I've been _much_ naughtier than in that Baldur incident."

Thor's jaw tightened at the mention of their younger brother. The exact truth of those events was not known and probably never would be. But Loki's actions on Midgard had been much worse, at least in scale.

"Did you learn anything from that?"

Loki considered that question. "Why yes," he answered after a moment, "yes, I did. But perhaps not what the All-Father intended for me to learn." He set himself back down on the cot.

He didn't elaborate, and Thor was unwilling to pursue it. There was only one reason for this visit, and he needed to get to the point. "He is having difficulty determining your punishment. His advisors are themselves not of one mind. They're afraid of you, Loki."

"They've always been afraid of me," Loki cut in.

"Will you listen to me, brother? This is serious." Thor stood and pulled his chair closer to the cot. When he sat again, his knees nearly touched Loki's. Loki pushed himself back further until his back touched the cool solid stone of the wall and he could feel the magic humming silent vibrations over it. "They're _very_ afraid of you. Some of them are insisting that Father put you in a version of the Odinsleep, a fully suspended existence, and keep you there for eternity."

Loki pulled his legs up onto the cot and crossed them in front of him. He massaged the aching right calf as he pondered this possibility. Deciding the thought did not appeal to him in the slightest and in fact unsettled him greatly, he sat up straight again and clasped his hands in his lap, ready to participate more seriously in this conversation. "Why do they not just execute me then? What is the difference?"

Thor glanced away for a moment. "A few of them prefer that option. But one involves killing, and one does not. You know well the injunction against Aesir killing Aesir."

"Now that you mention it, yes, I do. But execution is allowed in certain circumstances." He paused, then added, "And I am not Aesir."

"Yes, you are." Thor paused. He narrowed his eyes at his brother. "Do you _wish_ to be executed?"

"Of course not. But I believe I prefer dead while technically dead to dead while technically alive. Of course, if you're asking, my top preference would be to hear, 'Now, Loki, you've been a bad boy, no more attempts to rule any of the nine realms anymore, promise not to do it again and off you go.' And I would duly promise and be on my way," Loki said, putting his fist over his heart in mock salute.

Thor shook his head. "No one trusts you. You can't sit in this cell forever. It would violate the rules for treatment of prisoners, and it's feared you would devise some sly means of escape regardless. And if you gained your freedom, there's no reason to believe you wouldn't continue down exactly the same dark path and put Asgard and all the other realms in danger. The majority opinion right now is that we should send you to Jotunheim as a peace offering, to be their prisoner."

Loki felt the skin around his face tightening, and this had nothing to do with the tiny bit of poison in his body. The first genuine emotion he'd expressed since being dragged back to Asgard was plainly evident on his face. Loki knew that Thor saw it, but he wasn't sure he could have hidden it if he'd tried. Fear.

"Thor…if you still think of me as a brother as you say you do, and if I could ask you for only one thing for the rest of my life…however long or short it may be…please don't let them send me to Jotunheim." The words were costly, robbing him of dignity already in short supply. But he kept his head high and locked unblinking eyes on Thor's, instinctively trying to exert his will even with the powers he was now cut off from.

Thor regarded Loki carefully, hunting out any hint of joking, or mischief, or manipulation. Finding none, he leaned forward and put a hand on his brother's shoulder. "I swear to you, Loki Odinson, I will never allow you to be sent as a prisoner to Jotunheim."

Loki let out a deep breath, suddenly exhausted. Though Thor knew no special magic, in those seconds it had felt as though his brother had looked straight into his brain and sifted his brawny hands through its contents. Perhaps it was just the firegrub getting its revenge on him.

"What, then?" he finally asked. "You've only said what his advisors want. What does _he_ want? In the end his voice is all that matters. And what will you do if he says I am to be sent to Jotunheim?"

"Whatever I must, brother. I have sworn," Thor answered, astounded and hurt yet again at the extent to which their relationship had been severed and love replaced with hatred cooling only occasionally to indifference. It seemed there was no limit to his brother's ability to hurt him, and no callus that could sufficiently toughen him against it. "I would lift Mjolnir. I would go in your place if there was no other way."

Loki's expression slowly changed, eventually turning into one of his scathing smiles. "You're a fool," he said softly. "You always have been."

Ignoring that comment, for it was hardly the first time Loki had made it, Thor turned back to the topic at hand. "Father doesn't want to punish you. He wants to teach you."

"No," Odin said, standing in front of the cell door that had silently opened, unnoticed, and was now silently closing, standing there as if he'd been there the whole time. "Thor wants to teach you. I want to punish you. I want to roar at you loudly enough that you snap out of this infantile rebellion that has cost so many lives and- But Thor doesn't think this will change you. And I'm beginning to believe he is correct."

"Perhaps you can simply work some magic over me, turn me into another Thor. Would that change me into what you wish me to be? You are apparently adept at such magic. You were largely successful in turning me into this," Loki said, swiping a hand down his face and body. "Just a few hiccups here and there, really."

"I haven't turned you into anything, Loki. Physically, yes, I made you Asgardian, and you responded well to this magic, it was clear even then that you had special talents in that regard. But what is on the inside…you and you alone are responsible for that."

Loki looked away. He disagreed and disagreed vehemently but saw no point in saying so. His rage was balled up into something small and manageable now and letting it expand and explode was always exhilarating in the moment and tiring once the moment passed. And he was already very, very tired.

Thor stood to offer Odin his chair, but Odin waved him back.

"I understand you were injured by a firegrub."

Surprised, Loki turned back to Odin, then frowned. He shouldn't have been surprised that Odin was keeping an eye on him. "It was nothing."

"Still, give me your foot," Odin said, handing Gungir to Thor, crossing the cell to stand before Loki with two great strides, then settling to his knees while Loki stared in confusion. He reached for Loki's ankle and pulled the bruised and swelling foot gently toward him, removing the shoe.

"What are you doing?" Loki asked darkly.

"I brought a healing stone. I know it's a minor wound, but you're weakened from your battles on Midgard."

Loki jerked away, wresting his foot from Odin's loose grasp. "Don't touch me." He pushed himself off the cot and quickly crossed to the corner of the room farthest from Odin, near the entrance to the small bathroom. "You haven't come to see me for two weeks, and now you want to break a stone over my foot, for a few tiny cuts? What sort of game are you playing, old man?"

"I'm not playing games, Loki," he said, using the cot to help push himself back to a standing position.

Passing Gungir back to him, Thor noticed the deep sadness in him, and the weariness in the way he let the staff bear some of his weight. His father would soon need to go back into the Odinsleep. For years now he had needed that deep, regenerating sleep more often than any other time in Thor's life, and the conflict with Loki had sapped even more of his energy reserves, more than he could restore through sustenance and regular nightly sleep, what little of that he was able to get. His mother had confided in him that Odin spent much of the night pacing.

"I didn't want to see you. Not here. Not like this. I surrendered to weakness. But no more. Your actions must be dealt with."

"Well, then, let's hear it! The suspense is killing me," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Your brother learned a great deal during his short time on Midgard, when I banished him."

Loki's eyebrows dropped and the sarcasm faded slowly from his face. He watched Odin closely. There was no sign of humor in his face, nor had there been in his voice. "You would send me to Midgard?" Loki asked in as neutral a tone as possible. Adept as he was at concealing his true feelings, this little announcement was so astounding he wasn't sure he was entirely succeeding. He hoped at least the sudden giddiness that expanded his chest was not betraying him. From Midgard he could do anything. His face was known there, true, but he was nothing if not a master of disguise. He wouldn't have access to an army to take control of all of Earth or a tesseract-powered scepter to supplant men's wills with his own, but he still had his magic, his superior strength, his intellect…he could find a way to a more inviting location, or stay and take over a business empire and live in at least minimal comfort, grand comfort by Midgardian standards. But why only a business, perhaps a town, perhaps a small country, perhaps with time even-

"Do you think I am that foolish?" Odin asked, interrupting his thoughts. "Oh, no, Loki, you gave nothing away. You never do. But your eyes…those eyes…they speak a language that I now understand well. You are scheming. Your defeat, your imprisonment, your humiliation…it hasn't changed you. Perhaps Midgard can. But Midgard has suffered enough from your attempts to change _it_. I will not risk its further suffering at your hands."

Odin abruptly drew himself up to his full height, all traces of fatigue gone from him in an instant. Despite his extreme age he cut an imposing figure, and Thor found himself straightening up as well. The All-Father had come to a decision. A bright, clear image burst into his mind. A memory. Him standing in shock in the observatory at the end of the bifrost as his father denounced him for the actions he'd been convinced were correct; the sharp words had bitten into him deeply once they'd penetrated his bravado and anger. While his brother stood there, to his left, watching. Thinking. What had Loki been thinking then? He found himself glancing back and forth between Loki and Odin.

"Loki Odinson-"

"Loki Laufeyson," Loki sneered, his contempt almost palpable.

"Loki Odinson," Odin repeated with crisp enunciation, "you are to be sent to Midgard for a period to be determined by your actions and intentions, and not by the passage of time. You will be sent there with two enchantments, both signified by a mark, lest you forget them." He grabbed Loki's left hand and pushed up the sleeve a bit to clearly expose the wrist. "I place upon you the mark of your heritage." He pressed his right palm over the inside of the wrist and Loki gasped in pain, reflexively trying – and failing – to wrench his arm away.

From the wisps of smoke that rose from the spot, Thor could tell that something had been seared into Loki's flesh.

"This will remind you of who you are, and that power must not be used solely for destruction. If you do harm to any Midgardian, that same harm will be meted out to you, in equal measure."

"And if I harm one of their dogs? Or horses? Or cats or birds or-" His howl of pain as Odin again pressed his palm over the reddened, tender flesh brought his words to an abrupt end. He clamped his jaw shut, having learned a lesson. Odin hadn't thought of everything; perhaps he'd determined the parameters of this punishment in haste and left open gaps which could be exploited. There was no sense in pointing out those gaps so that Odin could fill them.

"The same holds for their creatures. Do not kill, or your life will be forfeit."

"And the second curse?" he asked through clenched teeth.

"An injunction against injuring and killing is hardly a curse. It is no more than a measure of protection for those around you."

"Your second…'measure,' then?"

"You already bear the mark," Odin said quietly.

"What are you talking about?"

"You took it on yourself. You deliberately crushed something smaller than yourself, with no regard for anything, not even for yourself."

Loki shook his head in annoyed confusion. "What…" But as soon as the word was out, he felt a tingling in his bare right foot. He glanced down at it, swollen if anything worse than before. He looked back up at Odin with incredulity.

"The _firegrub_? I crushed a firegrub, yes! So what! Are you telling me now that I may not even slap at an insect that tries to sting me? Perhaps you should put me in your Odinsleep after all. Your rules are impossible to keep!"

"Be silent, boy. You may slap at stinging insects all you like. But I have listened to the reports from Midgard. You compared the people there to ants underneath your boot. Have you learned _nothing_ from me, from all your schooling, your training? Did you ignore your history lessons, the ones I myself shared with you? How Asgard has been a friend to Midgard, and defended her when she could not do so herself? How could you have so very little regard for life?"

"You didn't care about defending Midgard, you cared about defeating the Frost Giants. That's all you ever cared about in those days," Loki spat back.

"I can't stop you from twisting everything I say, so think what you will," Odin said sorrowfully, reigning in his anger. He took a steadying breath before continuing. "This second mark is a wound which will not heal. You will be reminded of it with every step you take. It will teach you the appropriate use of magic. Each time you use magic to create mischief, it will grow worse. But the poison that courses through your veins is not simply causing you to ache, it is bonding with every particle of your being. It will cause you pain, but it will also separate some of those particles from their bondage to your will. Magic will gradually be lost to you, and if you do not learn from your mistakes, _all_ magic will be lost to you."

Loki turned to Thor, to his right. "He should have told me all this when he first arrived. I think I may have let him use the healing stone," he said, the barest of wry smiles pulling at the corner of his lips. Thor stared back at him, looking vaguely sad, with no hint of a smile at all, not that Loki genuinely expected otherwise. Still, he felt a mild pang, a sudden irrational longing for the chance to laugh with Thor again. Laughing was always a pleasure, but there was no laughter like laughter with Thor. When Thor released a hearty laugh and threw an arm around your shoulders, you felt there was no peak you could not climb, no foe you could not vanquish. Of course, that was also irrational.

He turned back to Odin. "How am I to defend myself? Or do you expect them to accept me with open arms?"

"That is not my concern. You have heard the enchantments. But the Midgardians believe you to be on Asgard. No one is expecting you to appear in that realm. You are not hunted."

"So I will drop out of the sky, hope that no one recognizes me or is at all curious about who I am and where I've come from, and any magic I work to extricate myself from the situation will make me unable to work magic in the future. And will give me a footache. Do I understand you properly, All-Father?"

"You have heard the enchantments."

"Father…he's right," Thor said, with some hesitation. He understood now how lucky he'd been, to first encounter Jane, and Erik and Darcy. His arrival could have met with far different reactions than theirs, and now Midgardians would surely fear anything that crossed into their realm. "Midgard is different now."

Odin's head swiveled toward him; Thor recognized the look, but swallowed and continued anyway. "At least a driver's license. My friends gave me one. It's what allowed me to avoid interrogation in that facility in the desert. It had an image of my face on it, and another man's name and residence. It is a useful document."

"These are trivialities," Odin said, turning back to Loki. "You may create such documents if you need them, so long as they are not designed to cause chaos. You may not, for example, create documents with the name 'Thor Odinson.' Now, no more stalling. You leave in an hour, a little less. Get ready. The chief jailer will bring you to the temporary observatory."

With his first step toward the door it opened, and he strode out without a backwards glance. The jailer entered with a slight bow of his head, placed a pile of clothing and a black leather bag on the cot and a pair of leather boots on the floor, then left, still with a slight bow. The door closed behind him and the locks tumbled closed.

"Well, at least my wardrobe is to improve, hm, brother?" He gave a short laugh. He'd slipped and referred to Thor as "brother" out of habit, and not out of sarcasm and disdain.

"It will be an improvement over this, yes," he said, gesturing toward Loki's clothes and approaching the cot alongside his brother. "But none of this will be appropriate for Midgard. You'll need jeans, and a…one of those shirts they call…"

"No, thank you. I tried those once, 'jeans.' Dreadful. I prefer Asgardian attire. Although I did find a few items on Midgard that were acceptable," he continued in mindless prattle while he reviewed his father's words and what they would actually mean for him.

"Just remember, brother, you must try to fit in. Do not try to put yourself above them. Midgardians do not appreciate that."

"Reality _is_ often difficult to accept."

Thor sighed. "I pray you learn quickly, Loki. I know you will not learn easily." He almost threw a shoulder around his brother's arms, but in the end thought better of it and called for the guard to open the door for him.

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_Next up, more Thor and Loki...and a change in setting._


	3. (2) Departure

_Thank you for the reviews, they are greatly appreciated! I hope you will enjoy the next installment.  
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_All right then, let's get this underway, shall we? We have another character to catch up with...  
_

* * *

**Beneath**

Chapter Two – Departure

"How long will you keep him there, Father?" Thor asked while the two waited. They stood in a newly-built temporary structure composed of mere wood carved with intricate rune patterns which served not as decoration but as marks of expansive magic. There were small windows on all sides; through one of them the closed gate leading out to the far reaches of the dead Rainbow Bridge was in clear and somber view. Sunlight streamed in from the vaulted opening in the center of the roof, brilliantly interacting with the blue light emitted from the tesseract resting on a simple but sturdy podium. Heimdall stood like an unyielding statue in the entrance, just as he had in the bifrost observatory. He was flanked by a cordon of additional guards, some visible and some not, all to ensure that the tesseract, especially when outside the weapons vault, was adequately protected.

"How long did I keep _you_ there?" Odin asked without turning to face him.

Thor frowned, but nodded. He'd known the answer – _as long as he needs to be_ – but had asked anyway, hoping that perhaps his father had at least some vague ideas about how long it would take. It had taken Thor just three days…because it had taken Loki even less to assume the throne and somehow visit him on Midgard and tell him his father was dead and he could never return to Asgard. On top of Jane's grounding, that had knocked the arrogance right out of him. Most of it, anyway.

Thor had been the one to argue for sending Loki to Midgard in some less powerful form, having learned so much there himself in that short time, but he still feared for his brother. Not everyone on Midgard was like those he'd first met, he now knew. Some were criminals who committed unspeakable violence, some were highly intolerant of outsiders, some were insane, some warred with each other. Some turned into enormous green monsters whose brute strength could outmatch Thor's own. Some had loved ones who had been killed by Loki's machinations and likely bore an understandable grudge. But at least this course of action, unlike all the other proposals, gave his brother a chance.

Both men turned at the sound of light footsteps entering. Frigga clasped a hand inside Thor's, then moved over to stand beside her husband. Her hair fell straight down her back instead of being up in one of her elaborate arrangements, the only visible sign of what Thor knew to be her deep distress.

All eyes found their way to the bifrost. Asgard's most learned minds were working day and night to direct energy from the tesseract toward regenerating and growing the crystals that formed the Rainbow Bridge, but it was a slow and difficult process. The bridge had not been built in a day, nor would it be rebuilt in a day. And the tesseract was dangerous. Great care was required to ensure its power was directed properly and kept stable, or disaster could ensue. It was also a target, better off hidden from sight behind layers and layers of magic than on public display near the water's edge. And still the end – the bifrost's reconstruction and reawakening – was not in sight.

A few minutes more passed in silence, before footsteps again drew everyone's gaze from the gate on the bridge.

"Heimdall, staying warm, I trust?" Loki asked, pausing in the entrance to the wooden structure.

If Heimdall reacted at all, Thor could not see it. The gatekeeper, he knew, did not trust Loki in the slightest, but neither did he fear him. Loki could likely taunt him all day and Heimdall would not even blink. Unless he made a move for the tesseract.

Loki walked into the room with a slight limp, and Heimdall turned to follow him, precisely two strides behind, stopping when Loki stopped. The chief jailer, meanwhile, took up a position just outside the entrance, his helmet gleaming in the sunshine and his gold cape billowing in the breeze.

"I wasn't quite sure what to wear. No one has given me a travel briefing." Loki had donned a long-sleeved, high-collared shirt of such deep violet that it was nearly black, with black leather pants and his favorite tall black boots. There was no armor, no metal, no other embellishment in sight.

"You have what you need in that bag," Odin said.

Loki hefted the rather light bag on his shoulder. But no, what he needed was not to be found in the small leather satchel. "Do I get to choose, then? New York is a lovely hamlet but I fear this may not be the best time to visit. I should like to see Norway. I've heard the tales and always been a touch curious to see it myself, though I understand it's changed a great deal."

"No," Thor said as soon as Loki's mouth closed. He reflexively spun Mjolnir in his grip twice.

"Enough. Place your hands above the tesseract."

"Wait," Frigga said. She circled around the tesseract on its podium, walking into and out of the streaming sunlight.

Loki watched, waited, and concentrated on keeping his eyes focused on his mother and not on the prize he'd worked so hard for, now just steps away. He could take it so easily, and if he could master all its magic, he would be literally unstoppable.

She ran her hands down his back and around his waist, and he accepted her hands when she placed them in his. "Loki…" she began, hesitatingly, in a quiet, soft voice that quickly gained confidence, "no matter what's happened, please know that I still love you. There is nothing you could ever do that would make me stop loving you. I'm your mother. It doesn't matter that I didn't give you birth. I rocked you to sleep, sang to you when you cried, stayed by your bedside when you were sick, threw my arms around you for every stumble and for every achievement. Part of my heart lives here," she said, disentangling her hands and pressing them to his chest.

"I know," Loki whispered, working hard to reign in his emotions. His father and brother, he didn't care if he hurt. Actually, that wasn't quite true. He wanted to hurt them. For his mother's sake, though, he wished he could turn back the clock. To never needle Thor into defying their father. To never find out he was a Frost Giant. For her he would gladly continue to live in ignorance, to live a lie and never know why his father loved him so little.

She took a small step back and reached a hand into a pocket hidden in the folds of her gown, withdrawing a small red velvet purse. From it she pulled a long gold filament, so thin it was only detectable when light reflected off of it at some particular angle. The filament was threaded through a small red globe. She took his right hand and placed the filament and globe carefully in his palm.

"It's beautiful," he said, lifting his palm up to eye level. The orb's surface was covered in precise microscopic cuts, each catching light in its own way. As he watched it, the light intensified. He met his mother's eyes again.

"It glows with the love that the one who gives feels for the one who receives. Your father gave it to me the day after he brought you home to us. I want you to have it now, to take with you, to remind you that you are loved."

Thoughts swirled in his mind. His gaze started to slide toward his father but he forcefully pulled it back, focused it squarely on his mother. "I will treasure it." He delicately slid a finger underneath the strand of filament and lifted it, then carefully put it on over his head and pulled his shirt out enough to let the necklace slide hidden underneath, just below his collarbone. "And I will not remove it."

"Frigga…" Odin called.

She glanced over at him, then reached out and squeezed Loki's hands again. "Take care of yourself. Remember that you are loved. Not just by me. Your father and brother also love you, though I know you don't believe it. Heed your father's warnings. And come home to us soon."

Loki squeezed her hands back, and leaned down to kiss her forehead. "I've been rather bored lately. It'll be an interesting diversion," he announced, pulling away from his mother. He closed the distance between himself and the tesseract without even feeling the pain in his foot. It was like a magnet, a siren's song, tugging inexorably at him. He reached out his hands. So close. He could take it. Stash it away. Hide himself while he unlocked all its secrets; what he knew of it already only scratched the surface. But he could feel his father's one eye squinting down at him, and his mother's eyes circling him as she went back to Odin's side. His father's magic was greater than his own so there was in reality little chance of success, but his mother's presence was even more effective, acting as a leash against him, counterbalancing the pull of the tesseract's power. He would not attempt such a thing with her eyes gazing upon him.

He placed his hands over the glowing cube.

"Farewell, brother," Thor said solemnly.

Loki glanced toward him, but in the same instant Odin lifted his right hand and the scene before him dissolved into coldness and light.

* * *

"He is wrong again," Odin said once the stream of light dissipated.

"About what?" Frigga asked.

"About this being an interesting diversion. It will be a war."

"A war?" Thor repeated. "Father, have you seen something? We can't allow-"

"It will be a war within himself. He will test and he will push and he will try until he brings himself to the brink."

When it became clear Odin did not intend to elaborate, Frigga lifted her chin and spoke. "He will pull himself back from that brink. I know it. He must."

Thor stared down at the tesseract. His parents hadn't seen with their own eyes what he had with his – the hatred manifesting itself so thoroughly, so violently that it approached insanity, the complete callousness toward human life, the unhesitating willingness to let those Chitauri creatures take Midgard and the rest of the nine realms – Thor wasn't nearly so certain that Loki would somehow pull back from whatever brink his father spoke of. But he wouldn't further upset his mother by voicing this doubt.

Instead he turned to the matter now most concerning him. "Father, please allow me to go to Jane. I must warn her. Loki mentioned Norway; he must know that was Jane's last known location. When we were fighting in the bifrost observatory, he threatened me that he would pay her a visit. It may have been no more than a goad, but…he could try to locate her. And even with the magic you've placed over him, I don't want him anywhere near her."

"Yes, go. She deserves that. But she must not tell the others. I told him he was not hunted. And do not linger. I must retire soon," Odin said, his voice and posture sagging just a bit even as he spoke the words.

"I understand," Thor said with a crisp nod. He shrugged out of his jacket, hefted his hammer from the ground beside him, and called his armor. Best not to be without it on Midgard.

* * *

Thor found himself standing in ankle-deep snow with snow-covered trees before him and a large, squat building behind him in what he assumed must be the Norwegian city of Tromso. He had imagined Norway as frigid and icy, and although he could see his breath when he exhaled, on Jotunheim this would be summer, if Jotunheim ever experienced such a thing.

"Good day, sir," he called to the lone old man bundled in a brightly colored jacket, leaning against the wall of the building in the distance. Remembering where he was, he switched to the ancient language, but that got him no better response. The man seemed frozen in place, mouth slightly ajar, a broom of some sort in his slightly raised left hand. Thor inclined his head toward the man and turned back toward the trees. It was twilight, and what little sunlight there was in the clear sky was now at his back.

He smelled ocean before him and heard traffic in the distance so set off in that direction, snow and ice crunching and crumbling under his heavy steps. When he emerged from the trees and shrubbery, he realized that Tromso was considerably larger than Puente Antigua, perhaps more like New York, though he couldn't be sure; certainly the buildings he'd seen thus far were much smaller than those in New York. All he knew was that finding Jane was going to be more difficult than he'd anticipated.

People stared at him, and before he knew it, as he strolled down the sidewalk passing tiny building after tiny building, he was being followed by dozens of those little devices like Darcy had, that captured images. On the other side of a wider, more heavily travelled street he saw what appeared to be a police vehicle, different from what he'd seen in New York but with similar strobes atop, and began to approach it. This land's law and order authorities, he figured, could perhaps help him find Jane. He hoped Jane Foster was as uncommon a name in this realm as it was in his own.

Before he could enter the street, though, a large black vehicle with darkened opaque windows screeched to a halt right in front of him. Three men, each wearing jeans and zipped up black jackets, spilled out and advanced on him. He let Mjolnir's handle slide down his grip until he caught it by the strap.

"Mr. Thor?" the man directly in front of him asked.

"_Prince_ Thor, yes. I don't believe we've met."

"Prince Thor. I'm Agent Larson. Would you please come with me?"

"I cannot. I've come only for one purpose. I need to see Jane Foster. Do you know where she is?"

Larson squinted his eyes up at Thor in scrutiny. "Sir…we can probably make that happen. But would you please come with us first? You're attracting a lot of attention here."

Thor quickly took in his surroundings. Traffic had come to a standstill and all eyes were on him. "I don't know you. How can I trust you?"

"Well, sir, I suppose you have no reason to. But I'd also suppose that if you felt you were in any danger you could get yourself out of it pretty easily."

He took one last look at the three men. Strong…but not nearly as strong as himself. And that was assuming all three took him on at the same time. Larson was right. Thor nodded and followed the men into the vehicle.

* * *

"Sorry about that, sir, uh, Prince. We just really needed to get you out of there," Larson said once they'd picked their way through the cars and made it through a few more intersections and out of the area. "We have an undercover facility in the area that we'd like to avoid drawing attention to."

"Most likely we _used_ to have an undercover facility in the area," the driver, a woman, said.

"Who is 'we'?"

"Again, my apologies. We're with SHIELD. Hastings, do you have Dr. Foster's location?"

"On our way," the driver answered, "as soon as I'm sure we aren't being followed. And as soon as the prince back there tells us why he needs to see her so bad."

Thor swallowed. He would have to choose his words carefully. He did not want to deceive SHIELD, but he could not disobey his father's instructions, either. "It is of a personal nature," he finally said.

"Personal. Considering what happened in New York a couple of weeks ago, which was also somewhat 'personal,' as I understand, I'm not sure that's a sufficient answer."

"Hastings, you drive. Let me talk. Look," Larson said, turning from the driver to Thor, "nerves are a still a little frayed. And she's right. Your 'personal' tends to wind up being pretty public."

"I understand. But my father has made sure that cannot happen again, I assure you. What I have to say to Jane is for Jane alone. I cannot remain long in your realm, so I insist that you take me to her immediately."

Larson inclined his head slightly to the side; Thor stretched his neck and saw a small black device implanted in the man's ear. He recognized its function.

"Hastings, take us to the Grevinden."

"Yes, sir."

"Grevinden?"

"The hotel where she's staying. We were keeping her at our base here, but once that portal over New York was closed and you got Loki out of here and everything calmed down the bosses decided there was no need to keep her in hiding anymore. She's leaving here soon. Tomorrow, actually."

"I see. Then I've arrived just in time."

"I suppose so. Listen, uh, Prince Thor-"

"Just Thor. I apologize, I am not your prince."

"Thor. Is there any chance you could, uh, change clothes, or somehow dial it down a notch or two? We still prefer a lower profile if at all possible. I could, uh, give you my coat."

Thor laughed and clapped Larson on the shoulder. "I don't think it would fit, friend."

Larson couldn't help laughing himself. He worked out at the SHIELD base or his apartment building's basement gym two hours per day, seven days a week, but he felt rather skinny next to Thor. "No, you're probably right. Okay, we'll hustle you to the parking garage elevator and key it straight up."

"I can release my armor."

"Oh, well, okay, that would help. We can store it for you here in the Land Cruiser."

"There's no need. It…stores itself, you might say," Thor said with a smile. He leaned forward and stretched out his arms, and all the metal and leather pieces that made up his armor began to fall off, disappearing before they touched the surface of the car's interior. He'd already been dressed so casually that he hadn't worn his cape in the first place, and while his brown leather pants and tall boots may not have looked quite like what the people on the sidewalks were wearing, neither did they look overly out of place. The pale blue cloth shirt fit right in. He wondered what Jane would think of how he looked, then caught Hastings peering at him through the mirror perched on the car's glass. Thor grinned and thought perhaps Jane would like it.

The grin faded fast, though. In his single-minded focus, it had somehow not exactly occurred to him that he was about to see Jane for the first time since he'd left her in the New Mexico desert, promising he would come back to see her again. He could never have imagined the things that had happened in the meantime. Destroying the bridge, knowing it could make him a liar. Watching his brother plummet into the abyss surrounding Asgard and mourning his death. Learning of his brother's appearance on Midgard and his efforts to subjugate it, and standing back in awe as his father summoned sufficient magic to carry him safely to Midgard without the bifrost. Walking the streets of Midgard again, but all the while battling Loki and the Chitaurians, his only glimpse of Jane an image on a mechanical device.

Perhaps she would not be so happy to see him.

Especially once he told her why he was here.

They pulled into what looked to Thor like a concrete cave, filled with other vehicles. Hastings stopped the Land Cruiser in front of a pair of glass doors, beyond which were metal doors that appeared to hide an elevator. "Follow me," Larson said, opening the door and jumping out. Thor followed, and the other two men took up position behind them, while Hastings remained in place. Thor recognized their stances and chuckled; they were "protecting" him. He decided to let them maintain this illusion for their dignity's sake, and simply followed Larson's lead. Meanwhile, his thoughts turned back to the woman to whose chambers he was being led.

He wasn't sure what Jane wanted, or expected from him. He thought back for the thousandth time to that kiss right before he'd left Midgard. He'd kissed her hand in a proper, respectful fashion, looked into her shining brown eyes, and she'd leaned up into him to kiss his lips while he responded. That was how it had happened, right? It had to have been. A kiss like that, on Asgard at least, was serious. He wouldn't have initiated something like that. Would he? He just wasn't sure now. All he knew was he hadn't wanted to leave her once their lips parted.

He thought back further to the night before he'd left, when they'd talked about Jane's work, and about science and magic, on the rooftop. How she'd hung on his every word, and he on hers. How she'd fallen asleep on that flimsy little chair and he'd drawn the blanket up over her as the temperature dropped. How he'd wanted nothing more in that moment than to stay by her side and protect her from cold and anything else that threatened her safety or happiness.

He had been in deep pain himself that night, though he had walled it up and not let anyone glimpse it. Acceptance of who he was, who he had become, was setting in – his rash actions on Asgard had cost him dearly. His beloved father, whom he almost worshipped, despite the rage- and humiliation-fuelled words he'd spat out that day, was dead because of him. His mother had rejected him. He would never see any of his friends or family again. He would remain in mortal form, easily harmed by all manner of things. He would have to make a new life for himself on Midgard, living out his days with a card that said he was "Donald Blake" to avoid undue scrutiny. And that night, watching Jane sleep, he'd begun to think perhaps he could spend his life with her, and his pain would be bearable.

But things had changed so quickly. Too quickly. His father was not dead. And while his friends hadn't had the time to explain what really happened, the pieces fell together quickly in Thor's mind. _Father is dead_, Loki had said, no, lied. _The burden of the throne has fallen to me_. The Destroyer, controlled by Asgard's king – who clearly was indeed Loki – and created by Odin's powerful magic, could not be stopped. So Thor had made what he thought to be his final gamble, and it had worked. His new life on Midgard would end far more quickly than he'd expected, but he'd done what he'd promised himself, he had protected Jane. And as his last breath rattled in the broken bones of his chest, he was at peace. But moments later he'd awoken to find his right arm stretched skyward and his chest and all the rest of him whole and coursing with familiar strength. He had not called Mjolnir, not consciously anyway, but a second later its handle was resting in his grip. And he was himself again.

But what did that mean for-

"Jane!" he exclaimed, a grin breaking out on his face. He'd been so deep in thought he hadn't even noticed them stopping and Larson knocking on one of the doors. He saw her over Larson's shoulder even as the agent was stepping aside.

* * *

_I hope you didn't miss Loki too much in this chapter. Originally the chapter ended with this section continuing, followed by a Loki section, but it made the chapter too long so I broke it here; we'll start to find out what Loki's up to in the next chapter. Jane has big plans of her own and no idea that a couple of Asgardian princes may be about to disrupt them._

Disclaimer, by the way, guess I should have put that on the prologue...I obviously have no claim to anything from the Marvel universe...except in my imagination._  
_


	4. (3) Reacquaintance

_Again thank you for the reviews, I've been really enjoying them and I respond if the PM option is there. If you have questions I'll be happy to answer them, but I may be a bit cagey to avoid giving anything away!_

_Thanks to my Norwegian-speaking friend for the hotel name "Grevinden." She tells me it's the Danish spelling of the word, which makes it sound a bit old-fashioned and gives it a little extra oomph of class in Norwegian. It means "Countess" if you're interested._

_In this chapter there's a little lightness and a little darkness...and Loki begins to test his boundaries.  
_

* * *

**Beneath**

Chapter Three – Reacquaintance

"Thor? Thor!" Jane launched herself forward and wrapped her arms around his neck as he lifted her up from the ground, careful not to hold her too tightly. She pressed her face into his neck and he slowly lowered her down again.

"Jane, you know how to reach us," Larson said, then extended a hand to Thor, apparently eager to depart the scene. Thor shook the hand and thanked the men for bringing him here.

And then they were alone.

"Well, uh…come in!" Jane said, tugging at his arm.

He allowed her to pull him in, and his eyebrows rose. The room, far nicer than her temporary living situation in New Mexico but still far less than she deserved, was in a state of considerable disarray. "Is everything all right?"

"What? Oh, this," she said, looking around the room. She glanced back up at him, laughing nervously. "Oh, well, yes, it's just, I was packing. Sort of. I'm flying out of here tomorrow. On an airplane, I mean, not…you know." She turned around and made a face at herself and the way he could catch her off guard and so easily make her dissolve from Dr. Jane Foster into Jane Foster circa age 18.

"So I heard." He smiled as he watched her cross the room and haphazardly toss items from a small sofa onto the bed.

She sat down sideways on the green and beige striped couch, her back to the large window mostly covered with drawn green and beige striped curtains, and crossed her legs in front of her. He left his hammer near the door, then settled down beside her, took her hand, and kissed it.

"It's good to see you again, Jane," he said, breathing in her vaguely floral scent.

"You too," she said over light laughter. "I just wish you could give me a little more notice. I mean- oh, I must look terrible!" Her hand shot up to her hair.

Thor laughed. "You look lovely. Even more lovely than I remembered." Her hair, most of it anyway, was up in a loose ponytail, and she wore a simple white shirt and jeans, with white socks on her feet. The shirt she was now looking down at had a couple of orange stains on it.

"Spaghetti," she said with a smile and an embarrassed shrug as she pointed to her chest. "I shouldn't have been trying to read and eat at the same time. Bad habit."

They sat in silence for a moment. Thor wanted simply to look at her for a while, to put off coming to the reason for his visit.

"I'm sorry," Jane finally said, "I don't even know where to begin." She stared up into his riveting blue eyes and tried to convince herself that he was really here, just inches away from her, instead of in her dreams and imagination.

"Neither do I," Thor said with a smile. "Wait, yes I do. Jane…I apologize. I promised I would come back. But when I returned to Asgard…there was a battle."

"With your brother?"

"Yes. He was trying to do something terrible."

"I can't imagine," Jane interjected coldly. For her, too, the events of two weeks earlier were still an open wound, even though she'd been thousands of miles away. Loki had killed Phil Coulson – a foe who had quickly turned ally and friend – and one of her college roommates had died during the chaos of the Manhattan battle. And then there was what he'd done to Erik.

"I couldn't think of any other way to stop him. Perhaps if there had been more time…but there was not. I destroyed the Rainbow Bridge."

Jane breathed in deeply, nodded slowly. "We could see a spectacular atmospheric disturbance of some sort after you left, and we waited. But then it dissipated."

"Without the bifrost, without the bridge, travel between the realms is next to impossible. My father located a passageway and worked hard to master the magic to control it, but only once Heimdall – the guardian of Asgard – reported that he'd seen Loki arrive on Midgard through the tesseract. Opening it severely depleted Father's strength."

She nodded. "I understand. We only knew each other for three days, but I knew you well enough to know you keep your promises. I knew something must be preventing you from returning."

"You never doubted?"

"No," she answered immediately, then smiled and glanced away. "Well, maybe once or twice."

"I'm sorry I gave you cause to doubt me, Jane," he said, taking her hand again and squeezing it in his.

"You're here now," she said, letting herself fall into those beautiful bright eyes. He looked the same – beard a little fuller, blond hair a little longer, but the sheer physical presence of him took her breath away all over again. She felt herself unexpectedly growing a little shy and attempted to push all the loose strands of hair behind her ears. "You know, just wait here a minute," she said, springing up suddenly and taking a few short steps to the bed. "I've got to at least change shirts, this is awful." And with just a few minutes alone in the bathroom she could make her hair look more presentable, too. She rummaged through the clothing on the bed, grabbing and discarding several before Thor came up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder.

"Jane…that's not important."

She froze, now with heightened awareness of the bed in front of her and Thor very – very – close behind her. She tried to quiet her breathing, which suddenly seemed incredibly loud. At first she had just been happy and relieved to see him. Now she wondered for the first time why he had shown up at her door out of the blue.

"There's something I need to talk to you about."

_Talk_. _Okay._

"Something serious."

She let out a deep steadying breath, dropping the shirt she'd been holding. Her eyes drifted closed for a moment. She wasn't sure if she was relieved or disappointed. "Okay." She turned around. "I'm listening."

"Come. Sit down again," he said, his hand lightly on her arm.

She followed him back to the couch, her curiosity piqued.

"Loki is on Midgard."

Jane shot back up and stared down at Thor. "What?"

"Father has placed enchantments on him. He shouldn't be able to do any real harm to anyone, not with any kind of magic, anyway."

"How did he escape? I would think if anyone could hold him it would be-"

"He didn't escape," Thor interrupted. "The All-Father sent him here as punishment, with enchantments to protect the people of Midgard. Of Earth."

Jane was shaking her head. "Thor, I know we're talking about Odin here and all, your father, but…that just doesn't strike me as a smart thing to do. He tried to take over the entire planet, and didn't bat an eye at killing anything that dared tell him 'no.' It's a miracle you and the rest of the Avengers were able to stop him and get him out of here. And Odin's idea of punishment is sending him right back? Who exactly is he trying to punish here?"

"Don't speak of him like that, Jane. He is…well, he is _my_ king. Not yours, I suppose. But I've told you, Father used magic to negate Loki's ability to do harm. He hopes, and I hope, that Loki will learn something useful here. Like I did."

Jane took a moment to process all this, sinking back down onto the couch. "So some unsuspecting person will run into Loki just like I ran into you."

"I suppose, eventually, yes. But I hope that person does not run into him with quite as much force as you did, when you ran into me." Thor watched Jane's face intently, but if she noticed his attempt at humor she didn't show it.

"Were _you_ sent here as punishment?"

"Yes," he said in surprise, before remembering that he'd never had a chance to explain things to her, everything had happened so fast. "Father banished me. I was to have been made king that day, but I ignored his wise council and acted rashly, endangering all of Asgard. I understand now that he was right to do what he did. I fear I shall never match his wisdom," he said, his voice growing soft as he looked inside himself and grew more pensive. "Here I learned much, and not least I learned how much more I have to learn if I am to be anything close to the kind of king my father is."

"So…you think of being on Earth as a punishment?"

Thor looked at her in confusion as her question slowly penetrated the fog of his introspection. Introspection – something else he'd learned on Earth. "No, that's not what I think at all. But it is a place where one can…can learn to cope, or to…to look at oneself in a new way. Without being a prince, or an Aesir, without magic at your fingertips…a place where one can learn. Do Midgardians not also travel in order to learn?"

Jane looked at him stubbornly. 18-year-old Jane was long gone. "We do. But Loki isn't a tourist or a college student on a study abroad trip. Our psychopaths and mass murderers we send to maximum security prisons. Or we execute them."

Thor broke her pointed gaze for just a moment. "Yes, he could be executed. We are not easily killed, but we can be, we aren't entirely immortal as the people of your realm think us. He could also be put into an unwaking sleep for eternity, the most maximum of maximum security prisons. Other options were considered. And argued over passionately. But in none of these options does my brother have the chance to return. To again truly be my brother, and my friend."

"So after everything he did here, after he tried to kill you himself, you still think you can somehow turn him around? You still love him?"

"Yes," Thor answered with simple conviction.

Jane just shook her head, still struggling to integrate this new information with everything she had learned before, from Thor himself, and later from the steady stream of reports flowing out of SHIELD.

"You don't believe me," he said. "Then you and he have something in common," he continued before she could respond. He let his gaze wander past her and over to the sliver of a view through the window beyond.

Jane let the moment linger, none too eager to open her mouth and say the wrong thing at this point, something she didn't often worry about. She tried to think not about Loki, but about what it was like to have a brother. The problem was, she was an only child. As a girl even into her teens she'd sometimes wished for an idealized older brother, someone who played with her, protected her, and good-naturedly teased her, but no matter what, always loved her, always listened to her with a sympathetic ear and offered a shoulder to cry on. Thor _was_ that idealized older brother, perhaps. At least for Loki.

"I'm sorry," she finally said. "I do believe you. Of course I believe you. But I think…I think that's not the issue. You want to give love, but Loki has to want to accept it. _That's_ what I have a hard time believing. You want to be his brother, but I don't think Loki wants to be yours."

"Perhaps not. But I cannot give up hope. Nor can my parents. My mother's heart is broken and my father…I fear he grows weaker with each passing day."

"Why did he do all this? Has he always…" _Been a psychopathic egomaniacal murderer?_ "Um, has he always done such terrible things?"

"No, of course not. He…he has always felt like he was in my shadow. I didn't realize it until recently, at least not the extent of it, how deeply he felt it and how much it gnawed at him. I was arrogant, too comfortable with the privilege of my position, and though I never meant to hurt him, I'm sure I made things worse. And then he found out things that, in his mind at least, confirmed for him what he'd already believed. Jane…it's a very long story and I don't want to bore you with details that are difficult to explain and wouldn't mean much to you anyway."

"You _were_ arrogant, hm?" she shot back at him, surprising herself at how sharp her tone was. She regretted it instantly.

Thor looked chagrined, and she regretted her words even more.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. I'm just…upset about Loki."

"No, you're right. I didn't mean to talk down to you. It's not that I don't want to tell you everything, more like I don't have the time. My father needs me. He only allowed me to come here so that I could warn you."

"Warn me? I thought there were…incantations?"

"Enchantments. Yes. But…he knows who you are, Jane. Who you are to _me_." Thor paused. He didn't want to worry her unnecessarily, but she deserved to know the truth. "When we fought in Asgard, he threatened to seek you out. He was only trying to provoke me into fighting him – and it worked – but it's possible he could try that now. Just before he was sent to Earth, he asked Father if he would send him to Norway. I think he knew you were here."

Jane frowned, but as she thought them through, she did not find these revelations terribly concerning. "He was already here, though, on Earth, Midgard. He could have sought me out then. He could have easily found me, l think. He was pretty good at finding whatever he wanted. And maybe he just wanted to go to Norway because Asgard has history there. Nick Fury assured me that only a handful of people knew about this location. Not that I was looking for assurances, by the way. I wanted to be _there_."

Thor smiled, feeling proud of her, the little mortal woman who did not back down before anything. Erik had told him how she'd stood up to a near army of SHIELD agents who'd taken her equipment and hadn't stopped until Erik physically pulled her away from them. She would have made a fine Aesir. "I know you did. But I'm glad you weren't."

"Well, what's done is done. I'm just glad to see you now. And, the more I think about it, really, don't worry about me." She jumped up from the couch again, crossing to the opposite side of the room and looking down at the papers spread over the desk. "Where _did_ your father send him?"

"I don't know. He didn't want it known."

"Okay, well, _when _was he sent?

"Today. Right before I arrived in Tromso."

"Perfect. I'm on a 6AM flight tomorrow morning to Oslo, and a few more flights on from there I'll be far away from here conducting research in a remote area guaranteed to be nowhere on Loki's top-ten list of where to look for me, assuming he even tried. I'll be gone at least nine months."

"Nine months?" Thor stretched his legs out before him and relaxed into the sofa. "That's a long time." It was for Jane, at least, he thought. Not for him. Not for Loki either, he thought with a frown. "Maybe you should stay there."

Jane laughed. "I don't think so. Not permanently. But really, it's the chance of a lifetime. Something I've always dreamed of doing and never thought in a million years I'd have the chance. But now that my research is being taken seriously…" She held up a color printout of a graph showing a breakdown of multiple particle emissions; the researcher who had conducted that study had been guided by false assumptions and had missed so much. She looked past the paper to Thor again, watching her intently. It flattered her that he seemed to find her so intriguing. "I owe this all to you, you know. If you hadn't come through that Einstein-Rosen bridge, the Rainbow Bridge-"

"If you hadn't hit me with your car," he interjected with a teasing grin.

"You're never going to let me live that one down, are you? Anyway, Darcy was driving, she hit you."

"Not the second time."

Jane sighed, conceded the point. "Whatever. If you hadn't shown up when you did, I'd still be sitting in Puente Antiguo or some other small town with a big sky trying desperately to find some sign of evidence for my theories and being laughed out of conferences and rejected from journals. I owe you a lot."

Thor merely smiled in return. He knew he owed her more. "I'm sorry for what followed."

"Yeah…it's not your fault. You're not responsible for your brother's actions. That was him behind that…that _thing_, right?"

"Right."

"You have nothing to apologize for. You did everything you could to protect the people of that town. You laid down your life for them."

Quiet settled between them for a few moments, while Thor wondered if he really had done everything he could, and Jane watched him, wishing she knew the words to say to convince him that he had. "How many died?" he asked softly.

Jane exhaled. "One. A woman was crushed in a collapsed building. And a SHIELD agent was killed outside town when it attacked them. But for all the damage that metal thing did, it could have been much, much worse."

Thor got up and went over to the windows. He pulled the curtains open and gazed out onto a street lined with trees, a slight breeze rustling the leaves. Cars plied back and forth, lighting up each other and tiny pedestrians who were going about their business. They shouldn't have to worry about conflicts from other realms; maybe with the tesseract gone they wouldn't have to. He would certainly do his best to make sure it never happened again.

"So," Jane said, coming up beside him and slipping an arm around his lower back. "How long can you stay?"

"Mmm, an hour, perhaps two, no more. My father will need to rest, possibly for a long time, and he is waiting for me."

"All right. Let's put that time to good use then. No more talking about anything to do with your brother. How about…how about this? I will introduce you to Earth's desserts. You never had dessert in New Mexico, right?"

A smile spread across Thor's face. He would let Jane make him forget. She had an uncanny ability in fact to expel sadness with the light of her smile. "Sweets? I had Pop-Tarts, remember?"

"Pop-Tarts? _Pop-Tarts_?" she asked with deliberately exaggerated features. "Okay those are sweets I guess, but that's not dessert. More like…fast food for breakfast."

"Fast food? Ah, yes, and the slow food was what we had at Isabella's, and what you cooked the next day. We have food like that on Asgard, the slow food."

Jane just laughed and pulled him toward the door. She would get him something much better than Pop-Tarts and her scrambled eggs and toast.

"Oh, wait. Just one second." She let go of his arm and darted back to the bed to grab her burgundy sweater. Holding out a finger to him as she scurried past, she ducked into the bathroom and closed the door. It was far from perfect, but in two frantic minutes spaghetti stains and fly-away ponytail hair were a memory.

* * *

Loki walked.

He had been walking for hours. Trudging through packed snow into which he occasionally sank up to his knees, cursing his father's – his Not-Father's – name. With every step of his right foot he was reminded of that wretched firegrub and its curse. What a snigger Odin must have had over that whole thing. He wondered if Thor had known the whole time. Probably. _What's wrong, brother? Feeling a little cursed, are you?_

He had appeared in the middle of a white landscape devoid of signs of human life, with clusters of tall fir trees here and there around him, their limbs sagging from the weight of snow and blocking the low sun. The air was sharp and dry and cold – almost Jotunheim cold. He had promptly made use of the long black fur-lined leather coat in his satchel. Of all the ornamentation and trimmings of metal and dark green cloth that had been on this coat, only a few bands of gold around the wrists remained. He left the hood down so it would not obscure his vision.

He had no idea which direction to go, though over time he had applied what he knew of this realm and of nature and determined that the direction he'd chosen to set off in was easterly. So, wherever he was going, it was to the east. Loki could survive for a long time without food or drink or other comforts, but he had no idea how long it would take him to reach "east," and what he would find when he got there. He heard a sound and stopped walking for a moment to look up; a few brave birds had taken off from somewhere nearby and were flying overhead. "Is this what you mean to teach me, Father?" he called skyward, knowing Heimdall may be watching. "Shall I learn to hunt for my own food? Use tree branches to construct my own dwelling?"

The birds disappeared from view. Headed to warmer climes, if they had any sense at all.

Maybe this wasn't even Midgard, Loki wondered, resuming his easterly course. Odin could have played a trick and set him down in one of the other realms. It was possible he thought, but not likely. This place, although he was certain he had never been in this part of it, felt like Midgard. Perhaps he had even caught a stroke of luck and Odin had ignored Thor and granted his request to be sent to Norway. He craned his head around back over his shoulder searching for the birds, but there was no sight of them. He was envious of them, for their superior view of the land.

And then he halted. Thinking clearly was not easy. He was angry and his foot screamed for relief from the boot constricting it mercilessly and from his own weight upon it. The birds, however, reminded him of his father's words. Magic was not forbidden to him, only magic that caused harm. No, magic that caused mischief. Loki laughed drily, the sound small and hollow amid these giant endless trees. _Mischief_. Wasn't that in the eye of the beholder? How was he to know what his father considered mischief? Was it mischief to manipulate the particles around him to get him more quickly to something resembling civilization? Surely it was not. He only wanted to be able to get off his feet for a while, perhaps to have a meal. To find out where he was. Nothing more.

He looked up again to the clear skies and the sun sinking lower in the sky behind him. No answers came, only a clear memory of his father repeating in his question-and-answer-time-is-over voice, _You have heard the enchantments._ What would Odin have said had he requested a reference manual? He wished he'd thought of it at the time. He gave a little laugh, then his face went blank. Decision made.

He passed his right hand over the particles around his feet, felt them growing excited, and in a second he was rising up from the ground. He lifted himself over the desolate snowy landscape, high enough to clear the tallest treetops, and failed to feel any ill effects from it. His father had said there would be pain. The pain he felt in his foot while he was walking and the persistent minor ache when he wasn't, or some additional pain to sound the magical alarm of a broken rule? Loki shouted up curses to Odin and his rules again, then grew silent and still. He had a goal and he needed to focus on it. In the distance he saw a dark, unnaturally straight line, the only thing around not completely covered in snow and ice. A road. Roads led to places with people. With chairs to recline in where one could remove one's boots. With warm beds and warm meals. With information. Continuously manipulating the energy around him Loki followed the road, gliding silently over the treetops alongside.

* * *

"So, what do you do for fun on Asgard?" Jane asked, setting down her coffee cup. They sat almost alone in the Grevinden's ground floor restaurant.

"For fun?"

"Yeah, games, entertainment, stuff to relax and enjoy yourself."

Thor laughed. "I know what _fun_ is. We aren't so different from you, in a lot of ways." He drank the last of his coffee and set the cup back on its saucer.

"You do remember the proper way to ask for more here, right?" she asked with raised eyebrows.

"I toss the mug right about there, I believe," he said, pointing to a place on the floor near her feet.

"Haha, well, just checking."

"They appreciate my improved manners on Asgard as well."

"I'll bet. A lot fewer expenses and a lot fewer messes to clean up. So, what do you do for fun?"

"My friends and I, we play a lot of games. Challenges we have to conquer sometimes together, sometimes against each other. There's teasing, jesting, playing pranks on each other. We go for long rides on horseback, we climb mountains, we ford raging rivers, we spar with each other to practice our battle skills. We relax afterward with mead and gaming and dancing and poetry. All sorts of things."

He'd spoken with a smile, but it had gone from radiant to sad in the space of those few sentences. She'd managed to keep the conversation light and full of laughter thus far, with updates on Darcy and Erik and Sif and the Warriors Three. But as the mood sobered, she realized it was inevitable they would circle back to the things that were foremost on Thor's mind. "You don't seem very happy when you talk about having fun."

"I don't?"

Jane shook her head. A waitress approached and asked if they wanted more coffee. Jane said no, but gave a half-laugh at Thor's "Yes, please." The air of superiority and entitlement he'd carried with him when he'd first shown up on Earth was nowhere in sight. He was a quick learner, and the restoration of his status in Asgard hadn't made him forget.

His coffee replenished, Thor breathed in the aroma deeply and took a long drink. "There isn't much fun to be had on Asgard lately, not for me at least. I miss all those things."

"Because of Loki."

"Yes."

As the silence lingered, Jane looked down at her empty plate, scraping her fork over the crumbs that remained from the cheesecake. Thor had not cared for it, not at first. By the third slice he'd decided it was delicious.

"Why didn't you tell me about all of this?" she finally asked. She lifted her gaze from her plate and found his penetrating blue eyes there waiting for her.

"About Loki?"

"About who you really are. About him. About you. About your father. About your life up there," she said sharply, angling her neck upward. "Or wherever Asgard is. I mean, I guess at first I thought you were just a regular run-of-the-mill weird guy who somehow showed up in the middle of an Einstein-Rosen Bridge. And then I saw that book about Norse mythology, and then…"

"You're annoyed with me," Thor said, his eyes still boring into hers.

Jane let out a sigh and sagged a bit in her chair. "No. I'm annoyed that I know more about you and your family from SHIELD reports than I do from you."

"Ask me anything. I have no secrets from you. The only limit on what I can tell you is time."

"No small limit," Jane said with a wry smile.

"Ask," Thor prompted again. He would tell her anything, no matter how personal or painful, and somehow he knew she would understand and he would feel better for it.

"Okay. You and Loki, were you close growing up?"

His face broke into a smile, if not that dazzling grin that lit up his whole face. "As close as brothers can be. We were about the same age, I was just a little older. We were attached to each other with invisible thread, Mother used to say. Learning, stumbling, helping each other up, fighting with each other, but back to back as soon as anyone else tried to hurt one of us. I knew him as well as I knew myself. We were different, though. Very different. But my strengths were his weaknesses and my weaknesses were his strengths. There was no one I would rather have by my side."

Jane nodded but remained silent, waiting for him to continue.

"Loki was a brilliant strategist and a tenacious and clever fighter. But I was coming into my full strength, as a grown man, and it was becoming clear that Loki's strength was no match. Under some conditions he could still occasionally best me, but in hand-to-hand combat I could defeat him every time. Once when we were sparring, he realized I was holding back. In truth I'd already been holding back for some time, but he only then figured it out. He was furious with me. He said I was dishonoring him and demanded that I respect him by fighting him with all I had. So I did. I would knock him down and he would get back up. I would tell him to stay down and he wouldn't. Before long I was pleading with him to stay down. And eventually he fell to the ground unconscious. When he didn't get up that time, I was afraid I'd killed him. He wasn't dead, of course, but I'd given him eight broken bones and a nasty head injury. He couldn't walk for almost a week. My father punished me, and after the punishment was over I was afraid to go see Loki. So he came limping to see me. I cried and begged for his forgiveness but he laughed at my behavior. He thanked me for fighting him as though he were an actual opponent, and said he'd learned greatly from the experience. And in a few minutes we were laughing about the whole thing. But that night after dinner, the first we'd been to together since I'd sent him to the Healing Room, I had a moment alone with him out on the balcony. I told him that if he'd died, I would have jumped onto the pyre with him."

"One of my friends in high school had a twin brother, and I remember her saying the same thing about him – well, basically the same thing – even though they fought like crazy."

"We were very much like twins. And I always thought he felt the same as I did." He paused. "No, I _know_ he felt the same. But something…something happened along the way. I don't know what, or how. He became very skilled in magic, just as I became even more skilled in fighting. Sometimes he went too far…sometimes I did too. But Loki…both of us, sometimes we were playing games that were funny to us and not so funny to those around us. And Loki deeply offended some. One day he did something truly awful, beyond all boundaries and against every law."

"He killed your other brother?"

Thor's eyebrows went up, startled. "How do you know that?"

"It's recorded in Norse mythology."

"That's amazing," Thor said, wondering how such a story had even made it to Midgard. He'd hadn't known of any contact between Midgard and Asgard in those days of his youth. "But yes, he did kill Baldur. We, my parents and I, were distraught. Father punished Loki severely, and it took him a long time to return to himself again. With time and other losses along the way, the pain of Baldur's death faded and Loki's role in it became a distant almost forgotten memory. We haven't spoken of it for centuries."

"So what changed, then?" Jane asked, trying not to let her thoughts linger on the "centuries" reference and all the questions it prompted in her. "Things were fine as far as you could tell, and then…and then he was doing whatever awful things he was doing in Asgard and trying to take over the entire planet here?"

Thor shook his head. "I must have missed something. I must have… The truth is I don't know. All I know is what he told me. Before we lost him from Asgard, he told me that he didn't want to be Asgard's king, but he didn't want to see me on the throne either, he thought I would make a terrible king. In a way he was right; it's true I wasn't ready. Then later, when I first confronted him here, that's when he told me he'd always felt like he was in my shadow. Those aren't the same thing. I can't put them together. I don't know if only one is true, or both, or neither one. Loki is an enigma to me now. All I know is he's my brother, and I love him no less than I ever did. There is…I don't know quite how to explain it, but I feel his absence physically, as if some vital piece of me has been removed and I'm not fully alive without it. Even when I was fighting the Chitauri in New York, part of me was expecting to see the glint of a knife fly past me and into my opponent, and to turn and see that Loki had thrown it. I don't know if it's possible for things to ever be the way they were…but I have to keep trying."

"I'm guessing no one's ever called you a quitter," Jane said with a smile.

"You guess correctly," Thor said with a hearty laugh, pushing away the gloomy thoughts and frustrating questions that had been tumbling around in his mind for so long now with no greater understanding to show for it. "This is my brother's chance to think about what he's done, the choices he's made, the family who love him, and who he really is. And to come to admire a people he tried to enslave. I hope all these things will happen and he will return to us. And if not…there will be time to cross that bridge. But Jane, there's one thing I almost forgot to tell you."

"What?"

"My father gave me permission to come here and warn you. But he doesn't want anyone else to know, especially those SHIELD people or the Avengers. Loki can't do them any harm. But they could do him harm. I don't think it would help him much to be locked in a prison cell and interrogated every day by people who may rather see him dead for what he did here." _What are you prepared to do?_ Director Fury had asked him when they knew there was information Loki had and SHIELD needed.

Jane nodded. "All right. I understand. As long as there's no sign of him out there trying to hurt people, I won't say anything."

"Father's enchantments should ensure that doesn't happen." He reached over took her hand. "If I thought you would be in danger I would never have argued for him to be sent here."

"I know." She watched as a frown spread over his face and gave his hand a squeeze, knowing she wouldn't be able to hold onto it much longer. "I guess I should ask for the check."

* * *

_Don't worry, Thor/Jane fans, the night's not quite over. And as for Loki, he's finally about to catch a break, at least he hopes that's what it is._


	5. (4) Aurora Borealis

_I had a lot of fun writing this one, I hope you will enjoy it! Some beauty, some frustration, a little bit of internal conflict for Jane. [Went back and added the separation lines I forget to add back in, and fix a typo.]  
_

* * *

**Beneath**

Chapter Four – Aurora Borealis

At last the lights from a car approached from the north. Loki lowered himself back to the ground, on the edge of the road right next to the small mountain of snow that had been cleared from it. He grunted as soon as he returned weight to his right foot, having managed to actually forget about it for a while, but he was exhausted from the constant effort required to maintain his levitation and would have had to give in to the pull of gravity before long anyway. Over a minute passed before the headlights again came in view. Loki put his back against the snow, pulled the hood of his coat over his head, and extended a hand toward the vehicle, hoping this would suffice to signal the driver. He tried to contain his pleasure when the small white car began to slow. He would have to watch his behavior carefully now.

The car came to a stop several steps past him and the driver rolled down the passenger-side window and waited for him to catch up. "Kind of cold for a stroll, isn't it?" the man asked in a clipped accent and rhythm Loki was unfamiliar with. He wore some unfathomable expression on his mustached face, which Loki studied for a moment before responding.

"It certainly is. Actually, my car went off the road," he said, gesturing widely in no particular direction. "I was hoping you would be so kind as to drive me into town."

"Oh, that's terrible! Of course, get in, get warm. It's only about an hour's drive. Are you all right?" the man said, reaching over and pushing the door open from the inside.

Loki got in, pleased at how well this was going. "I am in your debt. I'm afraid my car is the worse for wear, but I'm fine."

"That's all that matters. Things are things. They can be fixed. Mohsin Tarkani," the man said, putting the car back in motion then sticking out his right hand toward Loki.

Loki quickly grabbed and released the man's hand, preferring he keep it on the wheel that guided the car. "Lucas Cane," he said with a friendly smile. He'd thought of the name along the way, felt it suited him.

"Nice to meet you, Lucas."

"Likewise, Mohsin. Do you…live around here?"

"I do now. I moved out here just last month. I'm hoping to bring my family out soon, but it's complicated. They're more comfortable with city life. How about you?" Mohsin glanced over at Loki, but thankfully kept his eyes on the road most of the time.

"No. I'm travelling. I live in New York," he said.

"Ah, now that's the city life! I've been there. I like it a lot. But I like having a big lawn and nature just around the corner more. Have you ever been ice fishing, Lucas?"

"I have not."

"You should try it sometime. I don't know how long you're planning to stay in the area, but there's a lake just north of here where you can do some great ice fishing. I was just there at the lake. It was incredible. You saw a hole through the ice and you sit on this stool under a little tent," he said, gesturing with his right hand as if this would help his passenger better picture the event he described. "You drop your line, the fish goes for the bait, you pull the fish up through the ice, and there's your dinner. Very cool. My dinner's in my trunk back there in a cooler. Perch," he said, turning to flash a big grin at Loki.

"That sounds exciting," Loki said, expending some effort to make his voice match his words. He had gone fishing in his youth a number of times, and had enjoyed the challenge of it. It took skill and cunning to catch something which did not want to be caught. But doing it on ice, shivering and unable to see anything of the waters below, did not sound the slightest bit interesting to him. He wished the man would stop talking about fish and start telling him where they were located – the one question Loki had right now, upon which all other questions depended, and the one question he could not ask, not without drawing unwanted scrutiny for not knowing something he should if he hadn't arrived here out of the blue from another realm. But instead the man told him about his wife and his two daughters, his love of fishing with his friends and kite-flying with his daughters, and his job with a mining company that brought him "out here," all the while managing to give no clue to their location, as if he knew that was precisely what Loki was waiting to hear. Thankfully Mohsin seemed content to shoulder most of the burden of conversation, allowing Loki to say little and instead listen, hoping to learn something more useful than the numerous merits of living near nature.

* * *

"I guess we have to call the SHIELD office," Jane said, walking as slowly as she knew how out of the restaurant, Thor a half step behind her and forced to match her dawdling pace. She caught a glimpse out of a window on the far side of the restaurant and into the night. Her last night in Norway and Thor's last night, for who knew how long this time, on Earth. She came to a stop altogether and Thor bumped into her and apologized.

"Jane?" he asked when she didn't move. A waiter threaded his way around them with a tray full of steaming plates.

"Fifteen more minutes. Can you stay just fifteen more minutes?"

She looked up at him with eyes bright and eager, body tensely coiled with sudden energy and excitement. If she'd asked him to stay forever he would have found it difficult to refuse her. He dipped his head deeply to her, more of a bow than a nod. The next thing he knew she had darted a hand around his left bicep – partially around it, anyway – and was pulling hard on him. He let her tug him the rest of the way out of the restaurant and into the Grevinden's lobby.

"We're going to get in the elevator. When we get in, you have to close your eyes and cover them. If I had something to blindfold you with, I'd do that, but I don't, so your hand will have to do. You can't take your hand down until I tell you to, do you understand? Not a moment before I tell you to."

"I understand but…this isn't wise. What if someone or something were to attack?"

Jane rolled her eyes at him. "We're in a nice hotel in Tromso, Norway. Nobody's going to attack us. And if they do, don't worry, I'll protect you," she said with a smirk.

"How? I don't see your car here," Thor smirked back at her, stifling laughter.

"Haha. Come on, funny man. Into the elevator. You know, someday that's going to get old," she said as she herded him over to the elevator.

"No time soon, I trust."

"Don't worry, I'll let you know."

"With your car?" Thor asked once they stepped into the elevator.

Jane gave a cry of amused annoyance and smacked him on the back of the head, standing on her tiptoes to do it. Thor roared with laughter.

"Eyes. Covered. Now. No peeking or I will rent a car."

"I shall obey, My Lady," Thor said, still chuckling as he dutifully put his right hand over his closed eyes and tightly covered them. Jane wrapped her right arm around his left and he could feel them going up.

"Okay, forward, the ground is level," she told him when the door opened.

Thor stepped out blindly, uncomfortable without his sight but trusting Jane implicitly.

"Stop." He heard doors opening. Cold air rushed in on a breeze. "Forward, slight step down, okay, keep going, keep going, turn a little to the right, keep going, okay, you can stop here. Keep your eyes covered. Turn just a little to the left now. Lift your head a little bit."

"What is this?" Thor asked, his curiosity doing battle with his patience, a virtue he was trying to cultivate but had certainly not yet mastered.

"Open your eyes and see," Jane said, already staring upward herself.

Thor opened his eyes…and his mouth fell slightly open. Over a grand background of the island they stood on, the still cold waters of the Norwegian Sea, and the mountains in the distance, hung ethereal curtains of brilliant shimmering green, morphing in some places into blue the color of a clear daytime sky and fading so gradually and diffusely upward that it was impossible to determine exactly where it ended. And then what at first he thought he had imagined he realized he had not – the curtains were moving.

"What is this?" Thor asked again, softly, unable to take his eyes off the display of ghostly light before him, unwilling even to blink.

Jane smiled, delighted that he was so clearly in awe of what she was showing him. "It's called the aurora borealis.

"Aurora borealis. Even the name is beautiful."

"It's…" Jane shook her head slightly. It didn't matter. Talking about charged particles and the magnetosphere and solar wind wouldn't make this moment one iota better.

"I've never seen anything like it."

"So Asgard doesn't have everything, huh?"

Thor gave a small laugh. "No, not everything."

"We're lucky tonight. See the blue in it?"

Thor nodded slightly, trying to maintain his concentration on the aurora's movements, sometimes in barely perceptible shifts and sometimes in dramatic appearances and disappearances of luminous green folds.

"Blue is relatively unusual. Green is the most common color."

"I'd hardly call any of this common."

Jane slipped her arm around Thor's back and huddled in close to him. The cold was sinking into her bones. She should have been wearing a jacket, hat, and gloves. An Asgardian was the next best thing; he was pretty warm. He wrapped an arm over her shoulders and pressed her even closer to his side.

"Do you get cold?" she asked, looking up at him curiously.

He spared her a quick curious look of his own before lifting his face back to the sky. "Of course I get cold, Jane. I _am_ cold. I'm grateful for your warmth beside me. Jane…our bodies may be stronger and heal more quickly, but we aren't gods, and we aren't truly immortal. We…we feel the same things you do."

Jane sighed against him, savoring the moment, and wondering exactly what feelings he might be talking about. But eventually her more scientific curiosity overcame her and she asked something she'd been wondering about ever since Erik had shown her that book of Norse mythology. "Just how long _do_ you live?"

Thor chuckled. "I'm afraid I'm a very old man, from your perspective. I have lived around a thousand years, my father many more than that. But how long do we live…it depends. Even here, a man of forty years may appear much older or much younger, true? It depends on whether he's been dealt a hard life or an easy one, whether he's been able to take sufficient care of his health or not, and other differences."

Jane nodded, but only because it felt like that was what she should do, not because she could fathom living for a thousand years. She couldn't fathom living for a hundred years and that was something she actually stood a shot at achieving. Not to mention, the Thor who'd shown up in New Mexico could have passed for a trust fund undergrad. A trust fund undergrad on the wrestling team. "So…in a thousand years nobody on Asgard ever taught you to say 'please' when you wanted something?"

"Princes don't have to say 'please.' Though it is better if they do," he added with a smile. "But enough about my old age and poor manners." He looked down at her, longer this time, more confident that the majestic display in the sky would still be there when he turned his eyes back. "I wanted to ask you earlier, what do _you_ do for fun, Jane Foster?"

_This_, Jane answered, but only to herself. She sighed, tried to recall her other life, the one that was not glued to Thor's side on a hotel rooftop in Norway staring at one of the most stunning auroras she'd ever seen with her own eyes. "Well…I like to go window-shopping. I'd like to go real-shopping, but I can't ever really afford it. I like to travel, although I haven't had too many opportunities for it, not until now. I like getting together with old friends and reminiscing and catching up and giggling like teenagers. I like going for hikes in the mountains…though I've never actually climbed one to the top," she said, pausing to give him an extra squeeze. "I like having a new idea, and the rush that comes with trying to grab hold of it and flesh it out and research it and test it. I guess that doesn't sound so much like fun, maybe, but it is to me. And I like to look up at the sky, stop thinking about mass and gravity and particle emissions and the speed of light and everything else I ever learned from a book, and try to look at it like I did when I was a little girl. Just beautiful and endless and full of meaning that you're sure you can grasp if you just stare at it long enough."

"Come back with me," Thor said, the words out of his mouth before they were fully formed. He found he could now look only at her, at her soft brown hair and her soft brown eyes rising up to meet his.

Jane opened her mouth, but was too stunned to speak. _To Asgard?_

"You've shared so much with me. I want to share my world with you. Come with me."

"I…I could? I mean, I would be able to? I would be allowed to?" She had looked at the stars all her life. Could she truly travel out into them, beyond them? To this land where people lived thousands of years? Where _Thor_ lived?

Thor's smile faltered a bit. "It would be unexpected…but yes, you could do it. I want you to see Asgard. We have nothing so spectacular as this," he said, looking up again to find the green curtains had rearranged themselves and more blue trim had appeared. "But it is beautiful there."

For a split second, she could actually imagine it. Strolling along gleaming streets – she was sure they gleamed, holding Thor's hand, watching wide-eyed as he pointed out beautiful sites, places that were important to him, the Rainbow Bridge that she had so wondered about. But then she remembered another beautiful site, a thrilling site. A place she'd always wanted to go and finally had the chance to. She was scheduled for the last passenger flight. There was no delaying it. And she didn't have a thousand years in which to get a second chance.

"I can't," she finally said, and by the time she did, Thor already knew her answer.

He nodded, but his smile had disappeared. For a split second, he had been able to imagine it, too.

"I'm sorry. I want to. I want to badly, you have no idea. But…I have to be on a plane before dawn tomorrow morning. And I want that too. There may not ever be another chance to do the research I'm going to be able to do. If I went with you now…I don't know if I'd have the strength to ever come back, much less in time for that flight."

"I understand," he said, though it was only partly true.

"Ask me again sometime, please?"

"I promise." He leaned down and caressed her cheek, then wrapped his left arm around her again.

They stood there in silence a few more minutes, Jane second-guessing herself and Thor wondering if he should ask again this very moment.

But if it could not be, then it could not be, there was nothing more to it, Thor thought. He had come here to warn her about Loki's presence and he had done that. His father was awaiting his return and growing weaker. He turned to face her fully, taking both her hands in his. "I need something from you, Jane."

"What? Anything."

"I need you to tell me what is needed to make cheesecake." His mouth spread into a grin.

Jane burst out laughing, the tension of a moment before shattered and already forgotten. "If I'd made the cheesecake you wouldn't be asking for the recipe. I think it has eggs, and probably butter, and…" She broke into laughter again. "You'd have to ask my mother."

"Very well, then, I shall."

"Oh, uh, no. I mean, I'm sorry. My mother's gone. Passed away, I mean."

Thor cocked his head a little to the side. "_I'm_ sorry. I should not have-"

"No, no, it's okay, really. She died a long time ago. She loved to bake but I didn't…well, let's just say I wish I'd let her teach me a few things like that instead of always running off to stick my face in a book or a telescope."

"I'm sure she was proud of you and your books and your telescopes. What you study…this is a noble pursuit for a clever person like you."

"I think so. I mean, I think she was. She never said no when I asked for another book. She said no a lot when I asked for another telescope, though," she added with a laugh before growing serious again. "I just mean I wish I'd spent more time with her. But I didn't know I was going to lose her so soon."

"I know what you mean. Sometimes things happen too fast, and there's no time to right any wrongs. That battle I mentioned, with Loki, on the bridge? I pounded it again and again with Mjolnir and it shattered. Loki and I were both tossed up in the air by the explosion. My father caught me by the leg, and Loki and I wound up holding onto either end of Gungnir – Father's staff. Loki tried to…" Thor wasn't sure what Loki had been trying to do. Surely he hadn't truly believed he could gain their father's approval for what he'd done in his short time as king. "This look came over him, and I knew what he was going to do and that there was nothing I could do to stop him. He let go of Gungnir, and he fell into the abyss." He paused. He would never forget that moment that seemed to last forever, his horror and disbelief as Loki fell, shrank, and disappeared from view while he watched, powerless. He could see it in his mind's eye as though it had just happened, and for a moment that image superimposed itself onto the green curtains in the sky. "We thought him dead. I mourned for him every day."

"You know, after seeing what he did to Manhattan, it's hard for me to believe it, but for your sake, and your family's sake, I hope he _is_ able to change. I hope you get your brother back, and you both get a chance to right any wrongs."

"Thank you."

"So…," Jane began, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly.

"So."

"I guess you have to go."

"I do."

"I don't want you to get in trouble for being out past curfew because of me."

Thor wrinkled his brow, then chuckled. "I do love how you make me laugh."

"I do what I can. Come on, let's go back to my room and call SHIELD."

Thor shook his head. "No need. I know the way back. All I need is Mjolnir."

"You and that hammer. Okay, let's go get Mjolnir, then," she said, working to get all the sounds out properly and remembering with a smile how Darcy never could.

They rode down the elevator and walked to Jane's room in silence. Thor grabbed his hammer and Jane grabbed the coat, hat, and gloves she should have had all along. Then on second thought she stuffed the gloves in her pockets. She didn't want her silly rainbow-striped hand-me-down gloves between Thor's hand and hers. Jane felt her stomach sinking as they went back up the roof. Thor stepped away from her and stretched out his arms; she was about to move into them when she realized that wasn't what he had in mind at all. Out of nowhere his armor began to appear and fly into place. With it on, he looked much the same as he had when he'd left her the first time.

"I'll come for you again," he said. "But it may be a while."

"I know."

He bent down toward her, hesitating, but she pushed herself up against him and their lips met in a soft kiss. His arms tightened around her and she felt as though she were melting into him. She could have stayed there forever wrapped in his strong arms. But he had somewhere else to be. And so did she.

She pulled away before the kiss could grow deeper. He stood up straight again and took a step back.

"Have a safe flight. Watch out for traffic."

Thor laughed and held her gaze steadily for another moment. He swung Mjolnir around a few times and when the momentum had sufficiently built he thrust the hammer straight up, and shot up into the night sky. Green curtains closed around him.

* * *

The road had taken them due south for some time now, during which Mohsin had continued his stories. Loki learned he was from a place called Peshawar, in Pakistan, but it was clear from the way he spoke only in the past tense of it that they were not in Pakistan now. As time dragged on, Loki began to wonder what wasteland he had been dropped into to travel this far and see no sign of a settlement. He tried to recall the maps he'd studied of the planet when he'd been here before, but he'd put most of his effort into learning the power – and population – centers that Clint Barton had told him about. Still, he knew there were also vast stretches of sparsely populated land. The humans didn't live long enough to fill it up, he figured.

Suddenly Loki was pitching forward, then was slammed back against the uncomfortable seat, poorly proportioned for his tall frame.

Mohsin had been in the middle of some story about growing up in Peshawar, Loki couldn't remember what exactly. "Sorry, sorry. I just have to see this!" he called as he scrambled out of the car and closed the door, leaving the engine running.

Loki clenched his jaw. He briefly considered leaving this Mohsin and taking the car – he'd watched how Mohsin controlled it and was fairly confident he could do it himself, and do it much more quickly by applying more pressure to that pedal on the right. But what if the man fell ill standing in the cold? Loki wasn't sure what would happen to him in return. He stomped angrily against the floorboard with his left foot, then closed his eyes and brought his emotions under control. What could this man possibly have to see in the dark in the middle of nowhere? He opened his door and got out, turning to face back northward as Mohsin was now doing at the back of the car.

His lips parted and his irritation faded away. Fear replaced it. Countless wisps of smoky green trailed upward almost from the horizon high into the starry sky, surrounding a more defined area of green so bright and intense that Loki did not think it could possibly be natural. It looked like a wave, undulating ever so slightly across the depths of space. He clenched his fists and spared a quick glance around him. Along with his failed plans he had collected enemies.

_There will be no realm, no barren moon, no crevice where we can't find you._

Loki stared at the strange phenomenon before him and began evaluating his options. Surely Odin's curses wouldn't punish him for using whatever magic he needed to protect himself from the blood-thirsty barbarians in whose pit he'd landed after his fall through emptiness. From the sadistic torturer at the top of those stairs perched in the blackness of space.

"Isn't it incredible?" Mohsin called over his shoulder.

Loki fixed his eyes on the Pakistani. The mortal didn't sound afraid. Because he knew something Loki did not? Had this man set a trap that Loki had fallen into like some naive child? Had Odin sent him to this isolated land as part of a secret arrangement with the Chitauri and their master? "What is it?" he asked in a tight but steady voice. He glanced over at the tree line, just a few feet away, and flexed his hand in preparation for creating a duplicate of himself to mask his escape.

"You haven't seen it before? Well, you definitely can't see it from New York. You have to be quite far north. It's the aurora borealis, the northern lights. So remarkable. I don't think I'll ever get bored with it. It's been cloudy the last week or so, no chance for auroras."

"What causes this?" Loki asked. Mohsin seemed relaxed, unguarded. But as a masterful liar and manipulator himself when he needed to be, he knew better than to trust appearances.

"Oh, I don't know, I don't understand it. I read about it when I first got here. Electromagnetic something or other. I studied structural engineering at university," he said with a shrug of his shoulders.

The iridescent green wave slowly undulated and dissipated, losing its form entirely, as though it had crashed on a cosmic shoreline.

"It's beautiful," Loki said, ensuring that a smile could be heard in his voice even though he did not wear one. As the seconds ticked by and nothing happened his concern lessened. Besides, _he_ had studied "electromagnetic something or others," and was beginning to have an idea of what he was looking at; it probably _was_ a natural phenomenon resulting from this planet's rotation and magnetic fields. _The northern lights_. They had to be far to the north. Norway was far to the north.

An actual smile began to spread over his face and warm him from the inside out.

* * *

Jane finished packing everything except her carry-on and lined the two suitcases up by the door. She looked at the clock on the desk, now cleared of her laptop and all her papers. 8:58. She should go to bed. She'd told herself it would be lights out by 9:00. She looked at the bed. Felt her heart still pounding and her mind still racing. It was no use. Sleep was not in her immediate future.

She laid down on her back on the sofa instead, pressing her face into the cushion Thor had reclined against just a few hours earlier. She thought she detected his scent, but couldn't be sure it wasn't wishful thinking playing on her imagination. She ran a hand down her green-and-yellow checkered flannel pajamas and chuckled. Good thing she hadn't already changed into these when Thor arrived. They were warm and comfortable – practical – but they weren't the kind of thing you wanted your…

"Your what?" Jane asked herself out loud. She turned onto her side and wrapped her arm around herself. _Your super fit friend from Asgard who drops out of the sky…or knocks on your door…a couple times a year, likes your eggs, loves cheesecake, laughs at your jokes, never misses an opportunity to remind you how you almost ran over him. _She sighed, let her thoughts keep going in directions she hadn't permitted for some time now. _Has strong arms and really soft lips. Looks at you like you're the center of the universe. Makes you want to forget everything else and follow him wherever he goes._

Jane scrunched up her toes from restless energy, but quickly gave up on lying down at all and jumped up from the couch. She took a few steps over to the sliding glass doors to the balcony and opened up the curtains. If she craned her neck upward she could just make out a few wisps of the aurora. It seemed to have become more diffuse. Perhaps it would fade away entirely, now that the guest of honor for this night's performance had left.

She rolled her eyes at her uncharacteristically maudlin thoughts.

She wondered what Asgard looked like. She wished Thor had brought pictures. She wondered if they had cameras on Asgard. Maybe they took magic pictures. She wondered what magic pictures looked like. For someone who had no secrets from her, there was still an awful lot she didn't know about him or where he came from.

But maybe that didn't matter at all. _We aren't so different from you. We feel the same things you do._

Thor had the worst timing known to man. She couldn't imagine any other evening he could have looked down at her with those ridiculously intense eyes and scruffy blond beard and said, "Come with me," and she would have said no. And she couldn't think of anything else that could have made her question her intention to get on that plane tomorrow any more than those words. Any other day, she probably would have forgotten everything else and followed.

Suddenly she felt foolish. She'd had an invitation to visit another _planet_. Realm. Whatever. How could anything at all on Earth measure up to that, ever? She'd been thrilled at the opportunity to go to Norway, even if it all turned out to be nothing more than manipulation on SHIELD's part to keep her out of Loki's path. Asgard was somewhere out beyond the Milky Way, with constellations she'd only glimpsed through amateur photography.

But there she would be a tourist. Here she had a chance to collect real scientific data that could revolutionize the way humanity understood the most basic principles of energy and matter. To test hypotheses she'd never dreamed she'd be able to do more than speculate on and be ridiculed for. It was the culmination of everything she'd worked so hard for, of every time she'd had to defend herself and her theories against professors and colleagues and committees and… How could she turn that down for the instant gratification of an interstellar trip with Thor? _An interstellar trip with Thor_!

Had she made the right decision?

She realized she could no longer see any sign of the aurora. She inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly. "I hope so," she whispered against the glass.

* * *

_Did Jane make the right decision? Will Loki _ever_ reach his destination? How cool would it be to stand on a rooftop and watch the aurora borealis with Thor?_

_I do hope you enjoyed it, please let me know! Reviews as always appreciated._

_In the next chapter, Loki finally starts getting some answers, along with a dose of Midgardian sports, a reminder of Odin's enchantments/curses, and a new skill. Jane gets some pictures and a little taste of luxury._


	6. (5) Passport

_This chapter is a long one, I had a lot of material to cover in it. Again I had fun writing it and I hope you will have fun reading it!_

* * *

**Beneath**

Chapter Five – Passport

"Did you warn her or did you tell her the history of Asgard?" Odin asked as soon as Thor's feet were again planted on Asgardian ground.

He glanced from his father's stern visage to Heimdall, impassive as ever, and back again. "I apologize, Father. I left her so suddenly before, I couldn't just…I apologize," he repeated, seeing no slackening in the set of Odin's jaw.

"Are you satisfied with her safety?"

"I'm satisfied with what you've done to protect her and all the other mortals of Midgard."

"Good. Now let's go. Dinner is waiting." He nodded to Heimdall and started toward the door.

"Heimdall," Thor began.

"I will look in on her from time to time. If I may…"

"Speak."

"See to your father, My Lord. He is weary."

"Thank you," Thor said, then hurried after his father. Heimdall followed behind him seamlessly as far as the entryway, where he stopped to take up his post.

* * *

Not long after the little white car was underway again, signs of a settlement began to appear here and there on either side of the road. Loki watched carefully, sweeping his gaze continually to the left and right, while Mohsin apparently decided it was time to start asking questions instead of telling stories.

"So, Lucas, where are you put up? You have a room in town?"

"No," Loki said. "I was just passing through the area. Enjoying nature," he added.

"I hear you. There's nothing like these forests and lakes up here. Beautiful country."

Loki nodded. _I don't suppose you could be so kind as to actually tell me the _name_ of this accursed country._

"Well, you won't be able to get anybody out to your car until tomorrow, everything's closed. Hey, why don't you stay at my place? I've got a futon in a room I'm using for an office."

"Oh, no, I wouldn't want to be any bother. You've already been so kind," Loki said.

"No bother, really. No trouble at all. We've got a couple of hotels here, but they're so impersonal. I hate hotels, myself."

"Well, if it's truly no bother…"

"It's settled, then, great."

Loki kept the smile on his face, but this man and his incessant talking about useless irrelevant matters was wearing him down. Still, he hoped he could indeed learn more of what he needed to from someone's home than from an "impersonal" hotel.

"You can call your family on my mobile when we get in. I have a good plan. I just forgot the charger at home and it died."

"That's all right. I don't want to worry them. They won't be expecting to hear from me yet." Loki had learned as much as he could while on Midgard before, and got the gist of what Mohsin was saying if not every detail. _Hello, Father, is that you? Had a lovely stroll in a forest in the middle of nowhere. Thank you for depositing me so deep out in the nature that my new friend Mohsin loves so dearly. How was _your_ day?_

"OK, have it your way. Look, here we are!"

Loki's eyes jumped to a sign they were rapidly approaching. In a couple of seconds he could read the lettering easily: _Melfort_.

"Melfort," Loki breathed, keeping his intonation as neutral as possible. He wasn't sure if he should have heard of this place. In the distance he spotted a tower with a large round metal storage area on top. _Melfort_ was printed across it in big black letters.

"Yeah. Oh, let me guess, you were planning to make it back to Saskatoon tonight?"

"Right," Loki said. He tried to place the name and again failed.

"Sorry about that. Hey, you're not going to miss a flight over this, are you?"

"No, thank goodness," Loki said with a genial smile.

"Oh, hey, Iisten, I've got a great idea. I was going to meet some friends for the hockey game tonight if I got back in time. It's already started, but we should go. It's the Melfort Mustangs. Kind of semi-professional, I don't know. I grew up on cricket, it's a new sport for me. They play in the Canadian Junior Hockey League. You want to go? It'll be fun." Mohsin looked over at him expectantly as they rolled to a stop at an intersection.

Loki worked hard to control his reaction. "Why not?" he asked. _The_ Canadian_ Junior Hockey League? Canada?_ He couldn't help grinding his teeth. He didn't know where Melfort or Saskatoon was, but he knew exactly where Canada was. A very, very long way from Norway. Unless you went over the icy top of the planet. _Dearest Father, thank you for at least putting me in the proper hemisphere. I suppose you could have left me in Argentina. Or a friendly little place like Puente Antiguo_. Loki snickered under his breath. If anyone was left in that town at all, they probably would not have been happy to see him.

"Have you ever watched ice hockey?"

"Not until tonight!" he declared with the biggest, most Thor-like grin he could muster. He hoped the expression didn't look as asinine as it felt.

"Okay, I'll tell you the basics, later," Mohsin said with a laugh. "We're here," he announced, bringing the car to a stop and hopping out.

Loki followed suit, grateful to at least delay the basics of ice hockey. He'd already endured an excruciating exposition on cricket, a game involving bats and balls but apparently no insects, and the myriad variations in the types of matches. They were parked in front of a small single-story building with two doors. He followed his host to the door on the left and waited while Mohsin unlocked it.

Mohsin gave him a quick tour of the place – living room, kitchen with small dining area, two bedrooms, a bathroom, a utility room for doing laundry, and a hallway closet. Loki splashed cold water on his face in the bathroom and took a seat in the room he would sleep in that night. The accommodations were meager in the extreme and the thing he was supposed to sleep on looked worse than the cot in his prison cell, but Loki couldn't have been happier with it all. He was sitting in front of a computer. He found the button that would turn it on, but resisted the urge to press it. There would be time for that later.

"Ready, Lucas?" Mohsin called, emerging from his bedroom and peering into Loki's room.

"Ready," Loki answered, pulling his hood back up over his head. He was sorely tempted to beg off so he could get to work on the computer, but then Mohsin probably wouldn't go either and he wouldn't have the privacy he needed. He stood up and winced at the pain in his right foot. He was also eager to get that boot off.

"Here, put this on. You can have it, I've got three of them."

Loki wrinkled his brow at the thing he'd been handed. Opening up the material a bit more he realized it was a hat with something almost like a sunshade in front. He assumed it was the front because above it was an image of a horse wearing clothes and clutching a stick that turned into an L-shape at the top. He called forth that affable smile again, thanked his host, and pulled the ridiculous thing on over his head.

* * *

Jane took a last look around her hotel room, her home for the last week or so. Her eyes lingered on the green and beige striped sofa. On a whim in the middle of the night she'd taken a picture of it. Why hadn't it occurred to her to take a picture of Thor, instead of a piece of furniture he sat on? Feeling stupid she'd deleted the picture. A picture of Thor and her together out on the roof with the spectacular aurora behind them, why hadn't she taken _that_? She pulled her phone out of her pocket and took another picture of the sofa, then walked out of the room.

Ten minutes later she stepped out from the Grevinden's lobby into the frigid Tromso morning, pulling her black wool coat tighter around her. A driver from SHIELD had already collected her suitcases and laptop and loaded them in the car that waited in front of the hotel. He got out and opened the door for her as soon as she appeared.

She thanked him and got in, then blinked in surprise. Larson was sitting in the seat next to hers and Hastings sat up front in the passenger seat. "Good morning," Larson said as the car started moving.

"Good morning," Jane answered with a frown, feeling a little foggy and headachy from lack of sleep. "What are you doing here?" It came out a little harsher than she meant. First item on the agenda once she was checked in at the airport: coffee.

"We thought we'd have a chance to say goodbye to you yesterday when we came to pick up Thor, but since you never called…"

"Oh. Oh! He didn't, I mean, he left already. He kind of just…you know, swung his hammer around and took off," she said, miming spinning something around in her hand.

"We know. We were watching the hotel. The boss got a little nervous when he heard Thor showed up."

Jane nodded, then the words caught up to her. "You were watching the hotel? As in spying on me?"

"Spying is a strong word. We were watching," Larson corrected. "Just to make sure nobody else showed up."

"So…did you see us up on the roof?"

"Particularly spectacular aurora last night, wasn't it?"

Jane frowned at him with narrowed eyes. She didn't take her eyes off Larson but she could swear Hastings was smirking at her. She really liked Larson but sometimes he could drive her nuts. Hastings put her on edge and Jane avoided her whenever possible. It was so creepy to think about the two of them, or whoever else from SHIELD, looking up at her and Thor with binoculars or something during their private moments.

Then an idea popped into her mind. "Did you take any pictures?" She looked directly at Hastings. Definitely smirking.

"Oh. Wait. Were you…listening?"

"We had just eaten, so no," Hastings said.

Jane shot a smirk right back at her.

"So how's Thor doing, Jane?" Larson asked.

She swung her head slowly back to face him. "You saw him, how did he look to you? Look, Peter, you know I'm not into these games you guys play. Thor just wanted to talk about some stuff. Alone. The last time we saw each other he had to leave in a hurry, remember?"

Larson nodded and smiled that endearing lop-sided smile of his. "I've got to be able to put something in the report, Jane. You know how it is."

She rolled her eyes. "He likes cheesecake. And they don't have auroras on Asgard. How does that work for you?"

"Okay…one of those things might be…vaguely interesting. To some people. Maybe." He broke into laughter. "I'm sorry, Jane. You know I had to ask."

"I know," she said with a wry smile. SHIELD also drove her nuts. Though they'd supported her work once Thor left, they also insisted on watching her like a hawk when she did that work. They stole her work, then enabled it, then stifled it. She was never really sure she trusted their agenda. But she was about to get her freedom back, and driving through the dark and quiet streets of Tromso with two more SHIELD agents than was necessary to take her to the airport made her look forward to that all the more.

"Well. We got your equipment shipped out yesterday. It should be there waiting for you when you arrive," Larson said a few minutes later as they approached the airport.

"Oh, good, thanks. Really, thanks a lot. It would cost me an arm and a leg to send it myself, and SHIELD doesn't pay that much."

"More than your last gig."

"Yes, well, it's not hard to beat zero," she said with a laugh.

They reached the departures area and Larson hopped out to get her bags. Jane looked down, then up at Hastings through lowered lids. "So…can you…"

"I'll send them as soon as we get back to the office."

"Thanks," Jane said with a nod, then got out. Maybe Hastings wasn't so bad after all.

Larson stayed with her to help with the bags until she was all checked in; they hugged and Jane turned away quickly toward the security line. She'd had enough of goodbyes for a while.

The airport was not a large one and it was still only about 5:00 in the morning, so she made it quickly through security and out to the concourse and what appeared to be the only active gate, the flight to Oslo. She got a double shot of espresso and a piece of crumb cake and sank down into a seat in the waiting area. Boarding was scheduled to begin in thirty minutes.

She closed her eyes and replayed memories from the crazy night before in her head yet again. If only Thor had e-mail. She could send him a cheesecake recipe. Then an even better and slightly more realistic idea came to mind. She could learn to make cheesecake herself. And the next time Thor dropped in for a little visit, she'd make it for him. How hard could it be? After all, it wasn't that she was a _bad_ cook, really, just that she usually had something else she'd rather do – if it took more than ten minutes to make she wasn't interested.

She wondered how long it took to make cheesecake, from start to finish. She figured she'd better keep all the ingredients on hand at all times just in case, so she wouldn't have to run to the grocery store. _Hold that thought, Thor! I know it's been ages and you can't stay long but I'm out of eggs._ Jane groaned and took a long sip of the strong coffee. _This is crazy. _I'm _crazy_. Besides, there weren't going to be any grocery stores in her future for a while.

She thought back to the real reason he'd come to see her. Loki. She'd seen video of him from his crazy-dictator-wannabe "kneel" routine in Stuttgart and from when he was being held in some kind of impenetrable transparent cage on SHIELD's helicarrier. She'd studied the images closely from the safety of the SHIELD facility outside Tromso. He looked nothing like Thor – slender, shoulder-length raven hair, pale narrow face, clean-shaven. In Germany he'd looked so sinister in that horned helmet, every one of himself that he somehow created or projected around those poor terrified people. And what she hadn't seen in video, she'd read about in reports out of SHIELD. How he'd done some kind of mind-control thing on people with a staff powered by the tesseract. How he'd fired balls of burning energy at people with that thing, and stabbed and killed Phil with it.

A female voice over the intercom announced in Norwegian followed by English that her flight was about to begin boarding. She sat up straighter and massaged her temples, really beginning to feel the lack of sleep now. The flight to Oslo was less than two hours; she wouldn't be getting much sleep on it. But longer flights lay ahead, and SHIELD had sprung for business class tickets for her. Forget the free booze, Jane was looking forward to taking advantage of stretching out for some good sleep.

She'd rehashed everything Thor said enough times that she didn't think it would keep her awake any longer. And she wasn't really worried about Loki. Even if he could think of nothing better to do with his time than look her up, he was unlikely to follow her where she was going.

* * *

Loki followed Mohsin into a row of seats and was quickly introduced to a number of other men and a few women, none of whose names he bothered to try to remember. According to Mohsin they all worked for the same company, which provided tickets to some of the hockey games. Loki settled into his seat, glaring at the seat in front of him that dug into his knees. The Melfort Mustangs, Mohsin had gleefully told him once they entered the arena, were up 2-1 over the Weyburn Red Wings. Loki squinted at the opposing team's costumes and couldn't stop himself from laughing out loud. They wore what appeared to be a red homage to Thor's helmet.

He watched the players skate back and forth along the ice with admirable speed and agility despite the laughable bulk of the protective gear they wore. They were hitting a…what had Mohsin called it…a puck back and forth, ostensibly trying to hit it toward a teammate who would then hit it into a net to score a point, but that apparently didn't actually happen very often. Although he didn't know many of the rules, it was easy to tell who was playing well and who wasn't, judging by how often a player actually managed to direct the puck to his teammate instead of letting it be intercepted by an opponent. He noticed that when two players put their shoulders down and smashed into each other the audience seemed to appreciate that as if it were a score.

It was a fast and physical game. He quickly came to enjoy the action around the little black puck as it spun and raced across the frozen playing field. And although he did not think he would be fond of sliding around on the ice on a thin metal blade and could not fathom putting on so much padding – if one wanted to avoid being hurt one should simply not play – he thought he might enjoy trying his hand at this game…his own way.

One of the Mustang players suddenly had an opening and struck the puck with his stick hard. The reaction played out at high speed but Loki had already picked up the strategy of the game and easily tracked the opponents who tried to reach the puck and interrupt its progress and the teammates who tried to stop them. The player in front of the net went down in an unnatural position on his knees to try to stop the puck but failed. The audience, a crowd of around 400, Loki estimated, erupted in cheers. He found himself smiling as well.

A hand came down hard on his shoulder. He spun around and looked up into the face of a burly man shouting his appreciation for the score. Loki quickly transformed his face to show enthusiasm instead of offense. "How 'bout them Mustangs!" the man shouted.

"How 'bout them Mustangs," Loki echoed in word if not tone, then turned back around and sighed.

He couldn't believe what he had become. Two weeks ago he would have turned the ice into a more comfortable surface, strolled out onto the middle of it, and demanded the obedience of every single person in the building. And he would have had it, as soon as he brought down a few of the more defiant ones and perhaps took away the free will of a few of the leaders. He found himself watching – evaluating – one of the stronger players. A small laugh escaped him when he realized what he was doing.

"Fun, huh?" Mohsin asked, seated to his right.

Loki nodded and kept his eyes on the game. _Yes, that would be fun._ But now he was an interchangeable member of a crowd, wearing a silly hat and cheering for the stick-holding horse over the red Thor wings. For a moment he felt almost physically tormented by how beneath him this whole charade was. But then he remembered. Remembered that even though he sat among these people, he was not one of them. They did not recognize who or what he was, but _he_ knew. Let them think he was no different from them. He knew the truth. That he could smash their heads all the way through that ice before they could blink if he chose to.

He joined Mohsin in cheering for whatever clever play someone had executed; he'd let his attention drift from the action.

The score was 3-1 in favor of the Mustangs, and little time remained. Loki quickly assessed the players on the ice and felt a smile come to his face. It was time to have a little fun. One of Thor's players had hit the puck toward his teammate; in an instant Loki judged the teammate would find an opening and the current configuration of players would give him a high probability of sending the puck straight through that opening and into the net. He stuck out his hand, focused on the patch of ice in front of the player about to take the puck, and heated the ice. Thor's player's foot shot out from under him and he came down hard in the same instant that Loki cooled the slush back into its prior form.

Loki shot up from his chair along with several others around him, but not for the same reason as those others. Before he could even form a laugh over the little slip on the ice, pain had exploded in his right elbow. Then, as he stood and the initial sharp pain receded, he realized his right foot was aching worse than before. His breathing turned nearly into growling as he put his left hand over the elbow, stared down at the player who was already back up and in the game, and realized what had just happened.

"No worries, Lucas, he's fine. That was nothing. Sometimes these guys _really_ get beat up out there," Mohsin said. He tugged on Loki's arm and Loki sat back down.

Some of the others around him were talking, but Loki tuned them out, wondering how high a price he'd just paid for such a tiny bit of fun.

* * *

"So, are you just touring around Saskatchewan?" Mohsin asked back at his home. He and Loki sat at the small kitchen table eating some kind of dry miniature cakes Mohsin had pulled from a cabinet.

"That's right. I just wanted to get out of the city for a while."

Mohsin munched on his cake and nodded. "You like it so far? Until your car went off the road, I mean?"

"Of course. Especially the friendly people. Thank you for your generosity, Mohsin."

"Oh, no problem, Lucas. I'm glad I was there to be able to help. It's a cold one out there tonight. And besides, it was great to have you around to keep me company, though of course I'm sorry you got thrown a googly with your car. Hey, I'm sorry if I talked too much. I miss my family, you know? With a wife and two girls there's always a lot of talking. Hey, hold on a second." He jumped up and trotted over behind Loki to grab something off a shelf. "Here," he said, handing Loki the object and sitting back down.

Loki took in the portrait he held with raised eyebrows. An attractive round-faced, brown-skinned woman in navy blue and cream was in the center, her head covered in a filmy light blue scarf, her hands on the shoulders of two young girls with long brown hair, one in yellow and one in pink. The girl in yellow looked closer to a laugh than a smile. "You have a lovely family," he said with sincerity.

Mohsin sighed and ran his fingers through his dark hair as Loki watched him with renewed interest. He took the picture and put it back in its place.

"Mohsin, I think I do need to get a flight out of Saskatoon. I need to…to meet my family."

"I hear you. You can only be alone for so long. They're back in New York?"

Loki considered his next words carefully before speaking them. "No, actually they're in Norway. I'm not married. It's my brother's family."

Mohsin broke into an unexpected grin. "No kidding! My sister's in Norway. She's at university in Trondheim, studying engineering."

"Oh, my brother's family is in Tromso."

"Tromso…that's pretty far north I think. Well, the computer's in your room, feel free to use it, you can get your tickets online. I'll drop you at the mechanic's shop in the morning and you can take care of your car and continue your adventure, Lucas."

"I'm in your debt."

"Don't mention it," Mohsin said, standing up and pushing his chair in. "I've got to get to bed. Keep these, in case you get hungry in the night. I'll take the shower now, then you can use it whenever you like, okay?"

"Of course. Good night," Loki said, following suit and taking the little package of sweets.

Back in his room with the door shut, he took off the horse hat and put it in his satchel, shaking his head but smiling a bit without realizing it. Next the coat came off, and then he sat down on the thin mattress on metal bars Mohsin had stretched out into a bed for him, and did what he'd wanted to do all day. The zipper on the side of his boot came down slowly, bringing a sweet relief as it reached the ankle. He grasped the heel and toe and began to gently tug. It hurt, badly. When at last it popped free of his heel he couldn't stifle a hissed gasp between clenched teeth. He eased it the rest of the way off and felt vaguely sick at what he saw. The skin was white in patches and red in others, pinched, misshapen, and wrinkled. It was decidedly not normal. He lifted his leg, twisted the knee, bent to get a look at the sole. Five small black spots surrounded by a single large blister marked the place where he had brought a curse on himself by stepping on an overgrown bug.

_That was foolish, brother_. Thor's words sprang to mind out of nowhere. He had known. He must have known all along. He could picture Thor and Odin huddling together to come up with arcane means of giving him so-called freedom while making his life utterly intolerable.

He hobbled over to the mirror hanging on a closet door. His pale face was unblemished; the lingering bruises and small cuts he'd sported before were gone, healed either naturally or by Odin for some reason, he wasn't sure. He lifted the hem of his shirt and pulled it up and over his head. His chest also was free of injury. He touched the small red globe his mother had given him, hanging against his chest. He lifted the hand to his shoulder and peered at his elbow. A bruise was visible; he touched it and found it surprisingly painful. Had he taken that minor fall on the ice himself, he would not have had a bruise at all. Did that mean he bore not the bruise that he himself would have gotten, but the same bruise that the mortal sportsman bore? That was cause for concern.

He lowered his arm and rotated his left wrist until he could see the swollen and scarred tissue there, the other mark Odin had gifted him with. He stared at his image with defiant rage so powerful he saw the mirror begin to shake as he clenched metaphysical fists on the energies around him and teetered on the edge of control. He loosened his grip and channeled the power back into and over himself and watched as his reflection shimmered and morphed. A more familiar figure stared back at him, shining green eyes peering out from under shining gold metal that soared up into majestic horns. His neck straightened, surrounded by the metal-trimmed black leather of his coat collar. _This_ was who he was. Who he was supposed to be.

His gaze dropped lower, satisfied with the familiarity and comfort of everything he saw. Until he got to his right foot. There his leather boot and gaiter faded out around his ankle, beyond which his hideous swollen foot stuck out like a prank he might have played on someone who looked at him the wrong way. He reached a hand downward, tried to direct the energy particles surrounding his foot, and found he could not influence them in the slightest. He took a deep steadying breath. Was this because the magic Odin had worked on his foot overruled his own? Or because he'd actually lost some of the control that allowed him to work magic because he'd melted a tiny bit of ice? Another cause for concern.

_Hello again, Father. How are you? Feeling tired? I broke two rules at once today. You know I was never one to do things half-way._

He turned his back on his image and passed his right hand down his body, reverting everything to the way it was before. He limped over to the computer and sat down at the desk. He had work to do, and not much time to do it in considering the inefficient means at his disposal.

* * *

"Sir, we've been through the transcript with a fine-toothed comb. There's nothing there." Rollins, who'd just started his job a week ago, shifted his weight from foot to foot.

Larson nodded, frowning. He had listened to the conversation as it was being recorded with their best long-range parabolic microphone and had come to the same conclusion. "What about when they were in the restaurant?"

Reikvam, their best microphone handler, said with a light Norwegian accent, "Too much ambient noise, sir. There was no good angle. I got a little from the lobby, just a laugh, a couple of words."

"Here's the transcript for that," Hastings said, entering just as Reikvam was finishing. "Not much to it. Ballard already ran it through all the audio enhancement programs we have."

Larson took the single piece of paper, looked at the single line of text: _how […] [see?] […] car […] [soon?] […] car […] [_laughter_]._

"They're all his words. His voice is deeper, easier for the microphone to pick up," Reikvam added.

Larson looked back up with pursed lips and tightened jaw. Everyone else kept their silence. "So…," Larson began slowly, "They're either planning a joyride sometime soon, or a trip to a NASCAR race, maybe Formula 1 since they're in Europe, or maybe Thor's just in the market for a sweet Midgardian ride. That's wonderful. Very helpful. Thanks so much, Reikvam. Tell Ballard I said so, too. Fury's gonna love this."

"Look at it as a good thing, Peter. There's no evidence there's anything to worry about," Hastings said.

"Since when are you an optimist?"

Hastings shrugged her shoulders and sat down behind a computer terminal.

"Fine. There's nothing to worry about. Rollins, get the sound files compressed and send everything to Fury."

"Relax," Hastings said, rolling her eyes. She took her long-focus lens camera out of her backpack and hooked it up to the computer.

* * *

Loki found himself walking again, but this time was different. He knew where he was. He knew where he was going.

He had stayed up all night navigating the massive information dump available through a wire in the wall to Mohsin's computer. Despite the lack of organization, Loki was impressed at just how much one could learn from this device. Even the seemingly inconsequential travel plans of a seemingly inconsequential astrophysicist were easily available from some obscure website devoted to astrophysics research.

From there, extensive planning was required. He went to a website he'd learned about before, one that no search tool would discover, and was surprised and relieved to find he could still access it. They hadn't expected him back, and the fools hadn't changed their codes. He realized he should have come directly here first. No magic required.

As morning approached, he had turned to handiwork, and found it at times an engaging challenge and at times a frustrating annoyance. Like a petty criminal he pored over the passport Mohsin had conveniently left in his desk drawer along with other personal documents, looking over, into, and under each page and comparing this to what he learned about its secrets through the computer. With a certain pride he identified and copied onto sheets of blank paper watermarks, holographic images, and images visible only under certain light wavelengths. He went page by page, shaping, transforming, making microscopic adjustments to the paper and its print until he held in his hand the navy blue Canadian passport of one Lucas Cane, age 31, born in Toronto, Canada.

He knew this was his most serious test in ensuring he was able to take advantage of transportation systems without unneeded scrutiny. With it out of the way, he turned to a driver's license. While he didn't have that particular document of Mohsin's he found plenty of images of them online and created one with a suitable address in Toronto and another photo of himself. It was child's play compared to the passport, and Loki took a moment to snicker at Thor's naivete for thinking all he would need to get by on this planet was this silly driver's license.

Finally, he had turned to money. Was money a "document"? A "triviality"? He didn't know. And there was only one way to find out. He'd had the chance to study the bills while at the hockey game, and he studied them further on the computer, along with the features meant to prevent counterfeiting. He took another sheet of blank paper and passed a hand across it, watched the ink appear and paper change texture. He waited; nothing happened. He flicked a finger against the paper and it broke into six crisp $100 bills. He waited again; still nothing happened. Going for a touch of the dramatic before his audience of one, he breathed over the bills that had fallen onto the desk and their crispness was replaced with a more worn look and feel. Loki wasn't sure if his new bills should be considered counterfeit or not; he preferred not to think of them as such and instead of himself as his own treasury of Canadian legal tender. However, he had taken the time to learn how the dominant monetary systems worked in this realm, and he knew that flooding the financial market with additional printed money could cause chaos. So why was his curse not rearing its head? He hoped it was not the case that he was being harmed but for some reason not feeling the effects – his treasury had a lot of money to print.

Mohsin had dropped him off at the mechanic's shop that morning and bade him farewell with a strong hug that froze Loki in place for a moment before he recovered and weakly returned the embrace. _Strange man_, he thought, but found himself hoping Mohsin's wife and daughters would be able to join him soon. As Mohsin drove away, Loki also wished he could see Mohsin's reaction to him in his royal regalia, the moment when Mohsin knew just whom he'd brought into his home, and given a metal rack with a thin cloth on top of it to sleep on.

He'd gone into the little office where Mohsin left him, but instead of asking for his fictional car to be pulled out of the snow, he asked the easiest way to get to Saskatoon. And now, fatigued from all his efforts the night before, he was approaching a diner frequented by truckers, many of whom plied the route between Saskatoon and Melfort. He asked kindly and offered to pay for fuel and before long he had secured himself a ride to Saskatchewan's largest city.

* * *

Jane sighed and rolled from her side to her back, waking up in a reclining chair in a business-class lounge at Oslo's airport. The timing of her flights wasn't ideal – the tickets had been purchased pretty last-minute and the later Tromso-Oslo flight had been sold out. But if you had to be stuck in an airport for five hours, you may as well spend it in a business-class lounge. They had fed her on the plane, there was plenty to eat and drink in the lounge, and they would feed her several times during her eleven hour flight to Bangkok. All she had to do was relax and catch up on some sleep. Someone had even brought her a blanket to wrap around herself while she snoozed here in the lounge.

She lifted her arms up high in a stretch, then heard her phone buzzing for an incoming text and realized that must have been what woke her up. She grabbed it from the side of her laptop carrier and activated it. She opened the first text and found an image instead. Slowly she thumbed through all eight of them, biting her lower lip and grinning widely.

* * *

"Well, you've just missed the direct flight to Vancouver, but you'd only be sitting there anyway waiting for your next flight. In a couple of hours you can get on the flight to Toronto and then back over to Vancouver. It seems a little illogical but it'll get you there, eh?"

"That will be fine," Loki told the ticket seller at the airport, bestowing his warmest smile upon her.

"Okay. Only coach is available on the first flight, but for the rest I can book you all the way through in business."

"Perfect."

She told him the price and he reached into his satchel and started counting out bills. He set out the first stack of bills on the counter between them and saw she was staring wide-eyed at the bills.

"I've never trusted banks," he told her, flashing that smile again.

"Oh," she said, nodding and seemingly recovering from her shock. "Sure, I understand."

Tickets in hand, he approached security. He forced what fear remained in him into a tiny ball at the base of his spine; he could feel it but was in control of it. With confidence in who he was in comparison to all these mortals he approached the short uniformed woman who was stretching and flexing one foot then the other, her feet apparently hurting even worse than his. He smiled a vaguely condescending smile and handed her his passport and ticket. She looked them over briefly with what nevertheless seemed a trained eye, ran his passport through a machine, wrote something on his ticket, and handed both back to him.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Cane. Have a good flight."

* * *

_There were some quirky serendipitous things that came together as I was writing this, always fun when that comes together. Case in point - I randomly chose the Weyburn Red Wings from the Melfort Mustangs' schedule (both teams are real), then looked up their logo...ha! I got as much of a kick out of it as Loki did, and I hope you did too. As always, reviews are appreciated and I'll do my best to respond and answer any questions you may have also._

_In the next chapter, which I just finished, Jane and Loki find themselves getting closer (geographically at least!), and they both pick up some new threads._


	7. (6) Harbor

_Thank you for the reviews! I really enjoyed reading them (and responding), it's so interesting to hear your reactions to various things in the story - otherwise I am writing in a vacuum. I hope you enjoy this next installment.**  
**_

/

* * *

**Beneath**

Chapter Six – Harbor

Loki grunted and twisted his long legs left and right, trying in vain to find some angle to turn them that would not crush his knees against the seat in front of him. With the ceiling uncomfortably close to his head, he decided this was even worse than the seats at the hockey game. Brown leather squeaked on the uncomfortable synthetic material covering the chair every time he moved. He had passed several more spacious seats, built for adults rather than the children these seats were apparently intended to hold, but none of those were available. With his superior strength he could have marched back up there, grabbed a random passenger by the shirt collar, and tossed the person out of the seat, even out of the door. After all, who more greatly deserved to ride in what passed for comfort on these things? He rested a hand briefly against his chest, over the dark green cloth of his shirt, feeling for the gem his mother had given him. He was the son of a king. Just not the one he'd thought all his life.

The seat next to him was empty. Perhaps he could push up the short metal bar separating the seats and turn sideways, stretching his legs out horizontally. He looked down at his legs again. Perhaps he could simply shorten them by a few inches for the duration of the flight. He'd never tried such a thing but didn't think it should be so difficult.

And then, just as a voice came over the speakers to announce a full flight, a woman's purse dropped onto the seat next to Loki. He looked up and saw an elderly woman, blessedly short, wearing sky blue pants and matching sky blue shirt with colorful butterflies on it, topped by tightly curled short white hair. She was trying to lift a small suitcase over her head to put in the storage compartment there.

"Allow me," Loki said, contorting his body to extricate himself from his seat and move into the aisle. His Asgardian upbringing had ingrained in him a respect for the aged, but his offer was borne of selfishness at least as much as by any kind of altruism – it gave him the chance to bring some temporary relief to his legs. The old woman let him take the bag and he placed it in the storage container effortlessly. He twisted himself around and took his seat again.

"Thank you, young man," she said, stepping out of the aisle and in front of her seat.

"You're most welcome," he answered with a nod of his head.

"That doesn't look very comfortable," she said, peering down at him from over her glasses, still standing.

"I'm afraid not," Loki agreed.

"Why don't we trade? You can stretch your legs into the aisle, and I can enjoy looking out the window."

He narrowed his eyes at her, startled. Why should this elder, of all people, show deference to him? Could she sense something about him? Something that was different?

"Come on, this is a three-hour flight. You won't be able to stand up after three hours of sitting like that." Her voice was firm, as though she were used to people doing what she told them.

Loki nodded and stood again, stepping into the aisle to let her in before settling in the aisle seat, where he could indeed angle his hips to the right and allow his knees to protrude a bit into the aisle. He'd never sat on worse in Asgard, but it was a reasonable improvement over where he'd been.

"I'm Emily," the old woman said once she was settled in her window seat.

"A pleasure, Madame…Emily. Lucas Cane," he said taking her bony wrinkled hand and kissing the knuckles.

"Goodness, such a nice boy," she said with a chuckle.

Loki snorted and answered with a cynical smile, "I haven't been called that in a very long time."

Emily pursed her lips and swept her eyes up and down his form. "Hmph, really? Well, you're just not letting people see the real you, then, Lucas."

Loki's eyes widened. He wondered if Midgard had some form of sorcerer he had failed to hear of. He looked down at his arm and the bare green cloth covering it. In its place he should be looking at intricate patterns of metal and leather intertwined with cloth all covered by a sturdy bracer. But beneath that the real him, the invisible him, was ice blue. _No one_ saw the real him.

"May I ask…"

"Why not?" Madame Emily asked with a shrug as she pulled a paperback novel from her purse.

"How long have you lived?"

"Ninety-two years and counting."

Loki laughed, and even as he did so, he recognized how good it felt. The smile instantly died on his lips.

"Still got a lot of fight in me, too," she added.

Loki laughed again, shorter, quieter. A laugh tinged with bone-deep sadness. He had already outlived her by over 900 years, but he hoped to match her strength of spirit when he reached the equivalent of her age. If he managed to survive that long.

/

* * *

/

Jane's nose bumped the window. They were descending at last, after a nine-hour flight that had followed an eleven-hour flight. An actual bed was now in her immediate future, but Jane wasn't thinking that far ahead.

She strained to look for landmarks in the city below, lit up in the clear night. She couldn't even tell where the heart of the city was; it seemed to go on forever, little fingers of land sticking out everywhere into water of swirling blues and greens. She spotted the bridge first, though she wasn't sure how she knew it was "the" bridge, it just somehow seemed more prominent than the others. Then, just beyond it, jutting out into the water, was a little oddly layered blob of white. "It's the Opera House!" she said out loud, then bit her lip and glanced around, hoping no one had heard her. Her excitement beat back the jet-lag-induced headache she'd had for several hours now when two aspirin couldn't. She whipped out her phone, then remembered they'd already been told to turn off electronic devices.

The Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge drifted out of sight as their descent continued; Jane stared eagerly out the window the entire time. She was amazed at the scale of the city, and eventually had to laugh at herself and how accustomed to living in Puente Antiguo she'd become – Tromso had seemed like a metropolis to her. A minute after the plane touched down she started organizing her belongings, since one airport runway looked pretty much like the next. In no time at all she had her laptop carrier arranged and stowed in the little storage area under the seat in front of her and her passport with filled-in immigration card and customs declaration form in a death grip in her right hand, lest she somehow lose it. She had noticed the package of cheese crackers in her bag and removed them because of that video they'd shown just before they'd started to descend; she wasn't sure why Australia was so worried about her cheese crackers but figured they weren't worth a trip to the quarantine desk.

Her business-class seat permitted her a quick exit from the plane once the door was opened, and she wasted no time in doing so. Big blue signs in the corridors on the way to Immigration welcomed her to Sydney and bore images of the Opera House and palm trees, which surprised her, not having pictured Australia with palm trees.

She met her first honest-to-goodness Australian in person at Immigration, an older round-ish man who could have passed for Santa Claus if he'd put on the red suit, except Santa didn't talk like that. Jane stuttered out her answer when asked the purpose of her visit to Australia, and hoped her inability to answer properly didn't make Australian Santa suspicious of her. Luckily he just smiled, stamped her passport, and told her to enjoy her stay. She wished he'd said "G'day, mate," but figured maybe they only said that to men. Or maybe they only said that in the movies. Most of her deep fountain of knowledge of Australia came from childhood viewings of _Crocodile Dundee _on an old VCR. She couldn't remember seeing any palm trees in _Crocodile Dundee_. But it had been a while since she'd last seen it.

She'd pulled up every memory she could reconstruct of _Crocodile Dundee_ and also reviewed what she could recall of the 2000 Olympics by the time she claimed her bags and made it through Customs sans cheese crackers. Getting a taxi was quick and easy and she was off, headed north into the city, on her first visit to this country, this continent, this entire hemisphere. It was summer here, and the nighttime air rushing in through the cab's open windows was perfect. They reached an area where pedestrians were out on the sidewalks, people out for an evening stroll without a care in the world, or at least so it seemed. Jane felt positively giddy. She knew nothing about this country and had only seen a handful of streets from the back of a cab on the wrong side of the road, but to her it felt like freedom. She was on the other side of the planet. There was no SHEILD around either to steal her work or to watch it like a hawk, no one to tell her she had to go _here_ and she couldn't go _there_, just the freedom, the space, to do what she wanted, when she wanted, and no one to insist otherwise. She wished she could hop out from the cab at the next intersection and stroll along those sidewalks herself.

Of course it wasn't really so simple; she had a meeting tomorrow morning and another flight the next day. And Peter Larson had tried to insist that SHIELD provide her transportation from the airport. She'd burst out laughing – later, in private – at his reaction to her rather loud refusal.

She was looking to the left when the taxi driver told her to look right. She whipped her head around, and there was the brightly lit Opera House, now looking less like a layered blob and more like that beautiful structure she had always seen in pictures. The view was a brief one, and in a couple more minutes the cab pulled up in front of the Old Sydney Holiday Inn. She checked in, exuberance making her chatty with the receptionist who changed her leftover euros to Australian dollars and told her how to get to the harbor, and hurried up to her room with her bags in awkward tow. The room was more or less a typical hotel room – a bathroom, a dressing area, a couch in front of a TV with a small desk to the left, and a bed. She had asked for a view, so she left her bags by the door and went straight to the first window. When she opened the curtains she could see part of the Harbour Bridge. She raced to the other one, opened the curtains, and behind Door Number Two was the Opera House, in full view. She laughed out loud and shook her head in disbelief.

It was 10:30 at night, but she'd slept on the flight to Bangkok and a little on the flight to Sydney, and her body no longer knew what time it was anyway. She dashed back over to her suitcase, unzipped it, and pulled out a pair of brown sandals, jeans, underwear, and a faded orange Caltech T-shirt, one of the two short-sleeved shirts she'd packed. She made a quick trip to the bathroom, stripped off the clothes she'd put on in Tromso who-knew-how-many hours ago, and threw on the clean ones. Her hair was kind of a mess, but she re-worked the ponytail in the elevator on the way down.

Less than five minutes after leaving the hotel lobby Jane was standing in a big open circular viewing area, just concrete, a low wall, and a few benches. She guessed the temperature to be about 70. Having never seen the Southern Hemisphere sky, she was mildly disappointed that it was obscured by clouds that had moved in and further dimmed by the many city lights. To her right were the ferry wharves of Circular Quay, and behind it Sydney's modest skyscrapers, while closer in to the right was a cruise ship terminal lacking a cruise ship but still with a few people milling about a café and whatever else might be in that gigantic structure. But she could not take her eyes off the Opera House, directly across the small bay from her, the iconic image of Australia. And it was right in front of her.

A young Asian couple was talking quietly a few feet away from her; otherwise she had the area to herself. She stood for a while, then sat for a while, alone with her wandering thoughts.

/

* * *

/

Loki's eyes popped open, but he otherwise remained still. There was a soft chime above his head, followed by words. It took a few seconds for him to remember where he was and convert the words into meaning.

"-ask you to make sure your seat belts are fastened. Thank you."

He glanced down, his seatbelt was fastened. The plane shook a little. He frowned, adjusted his blanket, shifted onto his back, and pressed the control on his armrest to raise the seat into a reclining position. The television screen in front of him showed the location of the aircraft, approaching the "international date line." An artifact of the way in which Midgard marked time. He'd discovered that from his flight schedule – he left on a Monday but would not arrive until Wednesday, much later than the actual flight time suggested. He wondered why they didn't save themselves the confusion and call it the same time everywhere instead of using all these time zones. As though time could be zoned.

The graphic changed to show his arrival time, departure time, outside air temperature, and other little bits of information. It was childish compared even to Midgard's own current capabilities, their military aircraft and the SHIELD helicarrier. He wondered why the mortals tolerated it. Had his own plans succeeded, he would have given them better aircraft, better computers, the melding of technology and magic, in short a better way of living. All for the small price of recognizing him as their superior. Their sovereign.

But it was not to be, not now anyway. There was little point in wallowing in the past. The future was going to bring much more interesting things, and soon. Then he would determine a new plan.

/

* * *

/

Jane followed Young-Soo Park into a bustling building filled with food service counters and lines of people. She could get a seafood meal at any one of them, even a whole fish from the day's catch if she wanted. It was overwhelming.

"Where do you want to go?" Young-Soo called back from a few paces ahead of her as they picked their way through the crowds.

"You choose," Jane said.

Young-Soo led her forward and worked his way to the left. "How about this one? You can get beer-battered barramundi."

"Okay, sounds great." She'd already decided on barramundi for lunch, as they'd watched the trawlers come in to the Sydney Fish Market early that morning and Young-Soo had given her the rundown on some of the fish they were bringing in. "Barramundi" somehow sounded very Australian, so she figured that's what she should have.

Young-Soo, originally from Korea, had spent part of his childhood in the United States, then come back for graduate school at Princeton. Like Jane, he had found himself drawn to interpretations of theoretical physics that challenged conventional wisdom in ways that made the maintainers of conventional wisdom uneasy, and like Jane, he'd struggled to get his dissertation through the process and completed his degree with no support for continuing his work. A prolific inventor who filed several patents a year mostly as a hobby, he managed to pay the bills and continue his research thanks to a lens filter he'd invented that had been commercially developed. They'd kept in touch for several years, ever since they met at a conference at MIT at which they'd both presented papers while in grad school, but Jane hadn't seen him in person since he'd left the US.

He'd driven in early that morning from his house outside Megalong, some two hours to the west, and picked Jane up at her hotel. They'd sat outside at a small square metal grate table under a red and white umbrella and powered up their laptops side-by-side, catching each other up on their work and Jane filling him in on the research she expected to conduct over the coming months.

Paper plate of beer-battered barramundi and "chips" in hand, Jane threaded her way back through the crowd after Young-Soo, who'd gotten the same. He'd left his "esky," as he called it, on the table to mark it as taken, and pulled out two chilled bottles of beer from it when they got back. Jane set her laptop carrier down on the bench seat to her right.

"What do you think?" Young-Soo asked once she'd had a bite of the barramundi.

"Mmmm, pretty good," she said, nodding. "Not too fishy."

Young-Soo laughed. "I've never understood that. Why do you eat fish and not want it to taste fishy? Do you eat beef and not want it to taste beefy? Do you prefer chicken that doesn't taste like chicken?"

"I prefer fish that doesn't taste like…like algae or something. I don't know."

"Like algae? Have you ever had fish that tasted like algae? Do you even know what algae tastes like?"

Jane rolled her eyes at him and took another bite. "You goof-ball. You know what I mean," she said with her mouth full.

"No, I don't, really. But that's okay. I'm just thinking you must miss people giving you a hard time. Someone has to pick up the slack." He bit off a big chunk of fried fish and flashed her a puffy-cheeked grin.

"Oh, right. Yeah, I forgot, Princeton called last week and they want me to rewrite their curriculum and chair the astrophysical sciences program. And remember Dr. Fabian? He sent a three-page apology for holding up my dissertation with so many revisions. And _The Astrophysical Journal _wants me to take over as editor."

"I was thinking about applying to teach physics at Katoomba High School. Can I put you down as a reference?"

Jane laughed and let her annoyance melt away. Whereas she had always become combative in the face of the closed minds who wouldn't give her a chance, the rejection never seemed to bother Young-Soo, or at least he didn't take it personally like she did. He had talked her down from many a metaphorical ledge over the years, and she figured her sanity was intact at least in part due to him. "Okay, sure. Jane Foster, Ph.D., sole achievement since receiving doctorate – met a few people from Asgard."

"Well, how many people can say that? I haven't met anyone from Asgard. Nobody at Katoomba High School has met anyone from Asgard. I think they'll think it's pretty cool. Especially if I promise to book you as a guest lecturer. Will you be my guest lecturer?"

"Deal." She took a bite of fish and washed it down with beer, finishing off the bottle.

"You want another?"

Jane turned to him and started laughing.

"Okay, maybe you've had enough."

"No, no, I'm sorry, it's just…it's nothing. Actually I'll take water if you've got it." _Another!_ she could hear Thor's voice booming, with every expectation that someone would come bowing to him and bringing him whatever he desired.

Young-Soo grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler and handed it to her. "You know, this is your chance, Jane. Don't go in with a bad attitude."

She sighed. "I know. It's not a bad attitude, not really. It's more like…"

"It's self-doubt."

"Yeah, I guess so. Maybe. I mean…just because people are giving me the time of day now doesn't mean they're knocking down my door."

"At least they aren't boarding up their own anymore."

"But I don't know how much of this is really me, my work, and how much of this is SHIELD, you know? I mean, did I earn my way in the door, or did SHIELD hit it with a battering ram first?"

"Who cares? The point is you got in. Nobody can call you crazy anymore, because some of your crazy ideas have been proven correct. Now it's up to you. SHIELD's not down there with you. You got the opportunity, you just have to take advantage of it."

They fell silent for a while, polishing off their lunches while Jane sank deep into thought. "Don't think I don't see your ulterior motives, Young-Soo," she said once she'd wiped her mouth and fingers with a napkin.

He looked at her with curiosity.

"You're just buttering me up to make sure I run your little tests for you."

"Ah. Is it working?"

"Mmmmm, yeah. It's working. But listen, if I start going crazy, you better keep it up. You better e-mail me."

"I will. I'm going to have a lot to tell you about."

"Oh yeah? Like teaching at Kuh-tuh-whatever High School?"

"Katoomba," he said, sticking his tongue out at her and looking extremely yet endearingly silly for a moment in his glasses and Princeton T-shirt with chipped lettering. "And it's beautiful there, it's a big tourist area actually, I wish you had more time. I'd give you your own personal tour."

"_You're_ the one who doesn't have any time. I've got all day."

"You need more than a day, but I _am_ sorry I can't be your tour guide this afternoon."

Jane shrugged. "That's okay. I'm just so glad you were able to meet me at all. And I still can't believe I'm actually sitting in Australia, eating some fish I never heard of before, looking at variations in neutrino decay rates with you."

"Best day ever."

"Yeah," she said with a good laugh. It had been a while since she'd been able to really geek out with somebody. "But wait, so, were you being serious, is something going on?"

"You could say that. My mother got me something."

She squinted her eyes up at him, wishing she had a pair of sunglasses. "What?"

"A wife."

"_What?_"

"It all happened when you were hidden away wherever it was you were. Then when you started talking to the outside world again and you said you were stopping by Sydney I figured I'd wait to tell you in person."

"I know you said your mom wanted you to get married, but…do they have arranged marriages in Korea?"

Young-Soo laughed. "It's not exactly arranged. More like…assisted. She set us up and I actually liked her. But her parents don't want her marrying some crazy Korean who lives in the Australian boonies keeping weird hours and wearing T-shirts and short pants every day. That's why I'm looking into teaching at Katoomba High School."

Jane almost spit out her water. "Wait, you mean you were serious about that?"

"Sure. I like teaching. And while I won't put you down for a reference, you don't mind if I drop your name, do you?"

"I really can't imagine how that could possibly help."

"The only thing I've got on my CV since the doctorate, other than a dozen rejected journal submissions, is one commercialized patent. And you've got the Asgardian thing and some fun research you're helping me out with, at least. It couldn't hurt."

Jane shook her head and smiled, then slowly dragged the story of his sudden bride-to-be out of her friend.

/

* * *

/

Loki strolled around Sydney Cove, slowing and lingering in the higher points, the elevated Circular Quay Railway Station, the top of the stairs near the Opera House. His vision was excellent, and his eyes were well trained. He turned for a moment from the tourists and locals out enjoying the mild sunny weather and let his eyes sweep over the Opera House again. It was a short, squat building made of simple off-white tiles, three buildings actually, he supposed. The architecture was unusual for Midgard…but elevate it a hundred feet off the ground, perhaps stretch it just a little taller, and he could almost picture it on Asgard.

_Asgard_. He tightened his jaw, felt his chest similarly constricting. He flexed his long slender fingers, remembering the feel of Gungnir when it was first laid in his hands, its weight, its cool surface, the power humming in and around it. His fists closed around air. _Everything_ had been possible in that moment. Everything he'd ever wanted, everything he'd never even realized he wanted until that moment.

He took a deep breath, forcing his lungs to expand with the influx of warm Midgardian air. A new opportunity would present itself, and it would be here. He had laid the groundwork. He was ready to begin playing his hand. He was already playing his role. He'd arrived in Sydney in the morning and taken a taxi directly to Queen Victoria Building, which he'd seen advertised at the airport and which seemed likely to have sufficient selection in the type of clothing he felt most comfortable in on Midgard. He'd flirted aggressively and shamelessly with one young saleswoman in particular, who'd then given him her total adoration and attention and helped him select a number of outfits that would cultivate the image he wanted to project. Loathe though he was to accept any advice from Thor, he knew Thor was right about dressing to fit in. But that didn't mean he couldn't look good. Or have a little fun. The saleswoman was young, easy to manipulate, and probably would have said yes to a marriage proposal by the time he left.

In a shoe store he turned his back on the leather he would always prefer, made easier since this mass-produced leather footwear could not compare to the individually fitted boots he had made on Asgard. He selected three pairs, testing them only on his left foot, to the chagrin of the salesman. He next purchased some personal care items, the standard things he knew the typical man here to have, and a suitcase to pack it all away in. It was incredibly bothersome to actually have to carry all these things, though, so he made his way to a men's room, changed into a deep green long-sleeved slim-fit "henley," pleated tan "dockers," and a pair of particularly curiously named tan "boat shoes." His old clothes and all his new purchases he then waved his hands over, shrinking them in on themselves until they disappeared from view.

He emerged from the bathroom unencumbered and ready to begin his search. The new materials he wore felt reasonably good and judging by the price tags the makers were among the best this realm had to offer. The clothes did not project the power and status he would have normally liked, but he had to admit they were comfortable and well suited to their purpose. Certainly the boat shoes were much more forgiving on his sore foot than the tight-fitting boots.

As his last stop before leaving Queen Victoria Building, he'd stopped to get his hair cut in a shop near the men's room. He could have done it himself, it was a simple little thing, but for some reason something he'd never been good at. So he paid a mortal woman an egregious amount of money from his treasury of repurposed Canadian dollars to make a few snips at the locks of black hair that had grown longer than he typically wore it. The short hair, the new clothes, and the practiced cordial smile made him look less like the Loki this world had glimpsed, and if he needed anything more to conceal his identity he had plenty of tricks up his sleeve.

He'd walked northward through the business district, toward Circular Quay and Sydney Cove, and even enjoyed it despite the pain in his foot. He thought of it as reconnaissance, in a sense. Sydney had been on the list he'd drawn up with Clint Barton's help. Had he won victory in New York and had the rest of the world not fallen in line behind it, he would have eventually made it here to this continent nation and asserted his rule upon it by force. He stopped for a moment, now on Elizabeth Street, and inclined his head to look up at a particularly tall building on his left. _Yes_, he thought, _right about there._

Someone bumped into him, mumbled an apology, and continued past. Loki stared at the man's back with raging indignation. _Do you know who I am? You would have knelt before me, right here! You would have begged me to spare your life. And I do not think I would have._ He clenched his fists, felt the energy around him grow heated, but resisted the powerful urge to harness and release it. The consequences to him would not be worth the short moment of satisfaction in making this insignificant faceless nobody suffer.

He resumed his progress north, reminding himself again to focus on his goal.

It was mid-afternoon, and the Opera House was to his back, the sun shining in his eyes. He made his right hand into a shade and peered across the little harbor. And there it was. Just a speck really, nothing a mortal eye could have recognized. His goal. And it was looking straight at him.

/

* * *

/

Jane strolled around the little tourist stands at Circular Quay, a big dopey grin on her face. Nearby a group of street musicians was playing rock music with a weird mix of western guitars and a long, deep-throated didgeridoo, to remind her she was in Australia if she ever somehow forgot. She stopped to watch a ferry pulling in, returning from Taronga Zoo according to the sign. Jane wondered if they had kangaroos there, and koala bears. She wished she had time to go there, but then there were so many things she wished she had time for. Rather than race around trying to cram a week's worth of experiences into an afternoon, she had decided to stick with the area around the Opera House, and so Young-Soo had dropped her off near Circular Quay before heading off to a meeting with the developer of his lens filter. She liked it here; it was relaxing and exhilarating all at the same time.

The ferry started to disgorge its passengers, and Jane turned to her left, glancing toward the sun, which had grown quite bright in the afternoon. She squinted her eyes.

"I've got a fix for that, right here!"

Jane turned further to her left, saw a young man in his twenties motioning her over. He was ridiculously cute – tanned, blond, muscled in his T-shirt and shorts. She could imagine him being one of those Australian life guards from some TV show Darcy had gone on about when she'd told her she was coming here. _Why not? _She walked over to him and his little stand outside one of the souvenir stores.

"Sunnies," he said, pointing to an array of sunglasses and holding a pair out to her.

"Sunnies, huh?" she asked with a laugh. She took the ones he was offering and took a look. White plastic with "I love Australia" and the Australian flag printed on each arm. She put them on and looked at herself in the tiny mirror he held out to her. She looked positively silly, and positively joyful.

"They look good, yeah? Where are you from?"

"The US. Yeah, okay, I'll get them. I do need some sunglasses. Sunnies." She had a pair already, actually, but they were the expensive kind and carefully packed in her suitcase. She didn't have any that said "I love Australia" on them. "These are pretty awesome."

"They're pretty Aussie," he said with a lifeguard smile full of impossibly white teeth. "Come see what else we've got. I bet you need a T-shirt too. Maybe a hat."

Jane rolled her eyes and laughed, pulling her wallet out of her laptop carrier. This guy – this _kid_ – was flirting with her. "Okay," she said, paying for the glasses. _Nothing wrong with that_. Even if it was just to sell her more stuff with "I love Australia" written on it.

In the end she walked out with a bright blue T-shirt with the Australian flag emblazoned on the front – the Union Jack in the left corner, five stars representing the Southern Cross on the right, and a larger extraneous star underneath the Union Jack that the lifeguard had shrugged his shoulders about when she'd asked. She thought about pulling the T-shirt on over her red tank top, but decided to wait and wear it the next day. She did however decide to put on the matching blue bucket hat, with a colorful Union Jack in front and the Southern Cross on both sides with _Australia_ written in cursive on the rim. It was total tourist overkill, but she didn't care. She also walked out with a couple of suitcase-friendly gifts and a picture of her and the lifeguard/souvenir salesman on her phone.

She wandered back over to the band and listened for a while, then threw her change from her latest purchase into their donations box. Then she continued on a little further, toward the cruise ship terminal, still free of cruise ships. Sitting on a free bench she pulled her phone back out and thumbed it to the picture with the blond lifeguard. She clicked "share" and sent it to Darcy. She'd get a kick out of that.

She put the phone away and looked up, across the water, in front of her and to the left. The Opera House. Sydney. Australia. The Southern Hemisphere. Tonight, with a clear sky forecast, she would see the Southern Cross and the rest of the Australian summer sky. She bit her bottom lip, wondered with no particular urgency what she should do next. She hadn't yet walked over to the side of the cove that the Opera House was on, maybe she should do that, see what it looked like up close, what it looked like on the inside. Maybe she would walk over to the Harbour Bridge and join the other tourists in climbing it, as Young-Soo had suggested. But for a while longer, she was content to just sit and stare across the water.

/

* * *

/

He circled around her, very closely, but staying in the flow of pedestrians, until he stood several feet to her left and just a little behind her. He could watch her easily, but she could not see him without turning.

Like so many others around, she was barely clothed, in a sleeveless red shirt, tan shorts that went half-way to her knees, sneakers with no socks, and a floppy blue hat atop her head. Her hair was pulled up in some kind of tangled knot at the base of her neck. She sat there doing nothing but looking vacantly ahead, at the Opera House. She was pretty enough, he supposed, but clearly had no concern for her appearance or the image she projected.

There was nothing formidable about her. Nothing imposing. Nothing unusual. Nothing even particularly interesting.

She let out a sigh, and then, unexpectedly since no one was there for her to talk to, she spoke.

"Pinch me," she whispered, barely loud enough for him to hear.

Loki pursed his lips, holding back a sardonic smile. He wondered how she might react if he obliged her.

And then she turned.

Not directly to him, probably to the bridge barely in view beyond him, but once she'd turned his way, her eyes jumped to him, moved off him, then darted back toward him again. Something in her face changed, the beginnings of recognition.

* * *

_/  
_

_Reviews appreciated! In the next chapter (and I hope you don't mind these teasers!), Loki finds who he's looking for...but it doesn't go exactly as planned. Also there's a Thor-Loki flashback which was lots of fun to write._

_Addendum: Meant to note - I had the privilege of visiting Sydney around a year ago or so, and elsewhere in a "campervan" = US "caravan" or "minivan" up the East Coast. (With Juicy, for you Aussies & I think Kiwis too (?) who may know it.) I LOVED Australia, had an awesome, awesome time there. Many of Jane's moments in Sydney are my moments (adjusted for her character). And where Jane goes in Sydney, I went. I even had the beer-battered barramundi. So this was lots of fun for me; it was nice to be able to finally "write what you know," at least a little! Very unfortunate that Jane only has one day. If I could have sent her up to Australia Zoo, Brisbane, Moreton Island, Fraser Island, the Bundaberg Rum Factory, Cape Hillsborough, Airlie Beach & the Whitsundays, the Billabong Sanctuary near Townsville, Millaa Millaa Falls (sigh!), Kuranda, Cairns, the Daintree, and the Great Barrier Reef...well, she would have loved it as much as I did. Australian Tourist Bureau: my free plug for you.  
_


	8. (7) Acquaintance

_Thank you for the reviews! I am a broken record but I really do enjoy hearing what you think. Putting Chapter 7 up means Chapter 8 is complete - and after a tough time getting started that one really kind of poured out quite quickly and even ran long, so I had to come up with an earlier break point in it...which means part of Chapter 9 is already written also, yay! These chapters have been kind of a slow spiral bringing these two characters together and that spiral is now picking up speed..._

/

* * *

**Beneath**

Chapter Seven – Acquaintance

Loki saw the change right away, even with her eyes partially obscured behind those inane white sunglasses. Her lips parted; her brow knitted slightly. She didn't know. She wasn't sure. He was merely familiar to her, in a way she could not immediately place. But that would change. It _was_ changing.

With a flick of his index finger he reached out for all of those earlier images of himself, finding them easily because they were already so close to the surface of her mind. By the time he'd relaxed his finger to join the others in a lightly held fist he had obscured those memories, leaving his remembered self in shadow and blurry motion.

_I am protecting myself!_ he thought – shouted – at the same time, in hopes of convincing Odin and his curses that his motives were pure.

She blinked.

He winced. Either Odin was deaf to him or he simply hadn't been believed. Pain shot up his calf to his knee, a thousand needles pricking him one right after the other in a flash. His leg grew week, gave out for a brief moment in which he leaned heavily on his left leg to steady himself.

The pain receded.

Now was the time to act.

/

* * *

/

Jane squinted her eyes behind her glasses at the tall, black-haired, pale-skinned man standing beyond her left shoulder and watching her. There was something in the way he looked at her, almost as though he were looking _inside_ her, that made her skin crawl. And there was something…familiar…

She blinked.

He grimaced and nearly stumbled. She looked from his unsteady legs back up to his face. He was approaching her.

/

* * *

/

"Dr. Jane Foster?" he asked in a hesitant voice, taking another step closer and inclining his head toward her.

"Yes?" she asked with a frown.

"Ah. Good. I'm Lucas Cane." Now standing right next to her, where she sat on a bench, he thrust out his hand.

She stared at the hand, started to reach for it, then thought better of it and clasped her hands in her lap. Inwardly she cursed SHIELD for making her so paranoid. "I'm sorry, have we met?"

"No. But you should have received an e-mail…?" And indeed she should have. He'd sent it himself. But she wouldn't receive it for another four hours or so. He let his arm drop back to his side.

Jane smiled with one side of her mouth; the other almost managed to curve downward. "I haven't even checked my e-mail in…I've lost track, I guess a day or two. So, I'm sorry, who exactly are you?"

"Ah. Well, this is embarrassing then. You see, SHIELD is sponsoring me. I'm to be your research assistant," he said with an affable, confident smile.

She stared up at him, her brain turned momentarily to mush, and the upward-curved side of her mouth drifted downward. His words repeated in muddy distorted slow motion in her mind. _No-no-no-no-no-no-no-no…_ There was an explanation, there had to be. She misheard. And continued to mishear every time the words replayed…? This guy was looking for a _different_ Jane Foster. Who looked just like her and had long-term research plans and was associated with SHIELD…? She thought of Peter. He would have told her about this if it were true...wouldn't he? Therefore…

"Okay, funny. Who put you up to this?" Jane asked. Not that she actually thought it was funny. Not in the slightest. "Hastings? It had to be Hastings."

"Hastings? I'm afraid I don't know him. I…excuse me, may I sit?" he asked, gesturing to the bench.

Jane regarded him skeptically. This was her bench. Her Sydney. She didn't want to permit this stranger to be a part of it. Her frown deepened and she slid over. She couldn't make him keep standing there either.

He took a seat beside her. "I'm really sorry," he said, putting his hands out, palm up, in what he hoped would be seen as an almost submissive gesture. He clasped his hands over his lap. "I didn't realize you hadn't been told. It was all rather last-minute. A couple of those SHIELD people knocked on my door about a week ago. Well, they didn't say they were with SHIELD at the time. I didn't even know what SHIELD _was_ at the time. They asked me some questions about my research interests, and they asked if I'd be willing to work with you through the winter. And…well, I said yes. It's an honor, actually. Quite a surprise, but an honor."

"So…SHIELD sent you."

"Yes."

"To be my assistant."

"Yes."

"All through the winter."

"Yes."

Loki watched her closely, wishing she would get rid of her "I love Australia" sunglasses. Her face was virtually unreadable now, but it was clear she wasn't nearly as excited about this news as he'd expected. Who wouldn't want an assistant? And what kind of supposedly somewhat intelligent person was she that she seemed to have difficulty comprehending his rather plain language?

Jane blinked heavily, closer to letting her eyes drift closed from time to time than mere blinking. This could _not_ be happening. She resisted the urge to ask again. The answers weren't going to change. She searched for a way out. There was always a way out. "Well…you see…uh, what was your name again?"

"Lucas Cane."

"Mr. Cane-"

"Just Lucas."

"Mr. Cane…the thing is, I don't actually _need_ an assistant. There's just my work, a small, really small project, and a couple of _really_ small, tiny projects for a friend of mine, and I can handle that all by myself. I'll probably be bored, actually. There wouldn't be anything for you to do."

Loki's lips pressed into a thin smile. _Call me whatever you like, Jane Foster. That's what everyone else does._ "The SHIELD representatives I spoke with said they believed in your work and wanted you to have as much support as possible. And I'm quite excited about the whole thing. I'm sure I can find ways to be useful to you. Perhaps we can even expand your projects in ways you hadn't expected to be able to, now that you'll have help."

"No, I think I've defined the scope of work pretty accurately. Expanding it would be chaotic and risk the integrity of the project."

He just kept looking at her with the same unflappable light smile.

"A week's notice, huh?" she asked.

"That's right."

"Did they _tell_ you where you were going? Because I would think you would need more time to make a decision like that. It's going to be isolated and lonely. You won't see your family at all for nine months or more. It would be really hard on your family, and on you."

"I'm not bothered by isolation and quiet. And my family…we're estranged. I wouldn't see them anyway."

"Estranged?" Jane pursed her lips for a moment. "Maybe you should go back home and work things out with your family. That's much more important than some science project."

"The decision is made. They rushed my medical clearance, paid for my slot…it's all done. I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm looking forward to working with you. But…you clearly do not feel the same."

Jane took a quick breath. His expression was guarded, but she could swear she saw pain in his eyes, as though she'd actually hurt his feelings. Maybe she had. She wasn't acting like herself. She was bordering on flat-out mean. Maybe that border was already in her rear-view mirror. And she wouldn't have felt too bad about it if it were at least working. "It's not…look, it's not that. It's nothing personal. It's just…like I said, I don't really need an assistant. And if anybody had asked me about it, I could have told them so."

"Well, you've got one anyway," he said with a warm, friendly smile. "And I promise I shall prove my usefulness to you."

"Okay, we'll see," she said with a smile that didn't quite measure up to his. If she'd _had_ to take on an assistant, she would've brought Darcy along. Darcy would've at least kept things interesting over the long winter, and was highly unlikely to report back to SHIELD on her. _Nah_, she thought, _Darcy would go bonkers._ "So, uh, you said you were in school?"

Mr. Cane nodded. "I'm working toward my doctorate in the Astronomy and Astrophysics Department at the University of Toronto." And she could ask him the names of his professors and every class he'd taken there and he would know those too.

Jane's eyebrows shot up. "Astrophysics? Doctorate? Really?"

"Really," he answered with another nod, marveling over how much of their conversation consisted of her asking for repetitious information. Thor probably felt flattered by conversation that would seem to him a stroke of his oversized ego. Loki found it tiresome.

"My last assistant was a political science major undergrad. I guess that's a step up in the world."

"_Political_ science?" Loki laughed. It was the most difficult thing for him to manufacture, though he felt reasonably confident his voice sounded natural, genial. "Doesn't sound like much of an assistant."

Jane frowned but held back the sharp retort that she wanted to unleash on him. "She was pretty good." She sighed and her face relaxed again. "Pretty good" was an exaggeration in some ways. Darcy was clueless about the fundamental principles of physics; she'd taken a forestry class that somehow counted as a science credit to avoid the hard sciences. But she was sharp, when she wanted to be, and she brought a fresh perspective to things even Jane had ceased to question. She'd actually worked out fairly well. And she was fun to have around. Usually. _Darcy would have found a way out of this by now._

"I've never been to Australia before, have you?"

"Nope. First time," Jane answered.

"It's beautiful, isn't it? Especially the Opera House. I find the design fascinating."

"Yes, it is."

Loki waited for a moment. When she didn't continue, he took a deep breath and calmed the rising tide of anger within him. "Have you had a chance to see much of the city?"

"Not really. Just…just a couple of places."

So she didn't want to tell him where she'd been. She wasn't even looking at him any longer. Her gaze was back on the Opera House.

"Well…I've heard one can climb that bridge back over there," he said, angling his head off to the left, not that she would see him do it. "Why don't we go give it a try? I was on my way to do that when I saw you here."

At the invitation she turned to face him again. "Why don't you go on? I'm sorry, I'm just not much for company right now. It's my last day in Sydney. I just want to…I don't know…enjoy it on my own. Really, I'm sorry, I don't mean to sound rude…"

"Oh, no, I'm sorry. I understand. You need your space, and I've intruded. It's going to get claustrophobic in a few days. I'm glad to have made your acquaintance, though. Are you on the 8:25 flight to Christchurch tomorrow morning?" He already knew that she was.

"Yep." _Great. SHIELD probably got him business class too and I'll be sitting right next to him._

"All right then. Please, enjoy the rest of your day. I'll see you at the airport tomorrow morning. And…I think I _will_ go climb the bridge," he said, rising.

"Sounds good. I heard the bridge climb was fun, have a good time."

"Thank you, Dr. Foster." He offered his hand again.

Reluctantly, Jane took it. His hand was pale in hers, which was still tanned from before her two weeks in Tromso, and his fingers were long and slender. She noticed these things in passing, but what really struck her was how smooth and unblemished his skin was. He obviously hadn't spent the last few years building his own electronic equipment and burning himself on shorted-out wires and overloaded circuits. She allowed herself only brief glances at his face, noting only the green eyes and smooth high forehead.

He started to walk away, then turned around and gave her a little wave with his flat palm before continuing on. She returned it weakly, and continued watching him until he faded into the distance among the crowd of pedestrians.

/

* * *

/

Jane half expected her "assistant" to retrace his steps and ask her some more questions she didn't feel like answering. She wasn't going to share any of this with him. Not her Sydney. Not her Opera House. Not her freedom. Not with some stranger sent to check up on her.

By SHIELD._ That's_ why he'd given her the creeps when she first noticed him there looking at her. Assistant. Codeword for _spy_. And she would be locked up with him for nine months. What should have been one of the most incredible experiences of her personal and professional life now seemed utterly unbearable. She wondered if it was too late to back out.

And she _had_ wanted to climb the Harbour Bridge. Not now. With a huff she grabbed her package and started off back toward Circular Quay, continuing past it and around to the left, toward the Opera House. She was surprised to reach it and find that the white structure was not white, but rather composed of small off-white or even cream-colored tiles. She started thinking about wavelengths and refraction and what she could recall about rods and cones, but dragged her thoughts away from the science behind color perception and took a picture with her phone. Keeping the phone out, she walked all the way around the Opera House taking pictures from all different angles.

Some kind of park began just to the southeast; she decided to explore that next and try to reclaim her peace of mind.

The park – the Royal Botanic Gardens – was enormous, and Jane lost herself in it for hours, reading about the many varieties of trees cultivated there. She emerged from the gardens as the sun was beginning to set and found her way into a smaller park area, where she stood admiring an elaborate fountain surrounded by paths branching out like spokes on a wheel. The central path was lined with mature fig trees, and continued on as far as she could see, even across a busy street. But that path led further away from her hotel, and it would be getting dark soon. She turned onto Macquarie Street and headed north with two very different Sydneys flanking her; to the left modern office buildings towered over her and to the right were the wide open spaces of the Royal Botanic Gardens.

Along the way she found a Chinese restaurant, and after ordering her vegetable lo mein she wondered what constituted Australian cuisine. _Crocodile Dundee_ was not of much help there, at least not that she could recall. She was fine with the Chinese food, though; really she was just biding her time. By the time she left the restaurant it would be dark.

She did a bit of people-watching in the restaurant, then when her meal came she pulled out her phone and began flipping back through her pictures as she ate. They brought a smile to her face. She'd seen a lot for such a short time. She got back to the pictures she'd taken as the trawlers brought in the catch at the Sydney Fish Market. The goofy one she'd taken with Young-Soo, both of them making faces at the camera. Then a few she'd taken in various airports along the way, nothing so special about the pictures themselves, just proof she'd been there. Then the picture of that green and gold sofa. It seemed unimaginably far away now…and yet it was a stone's throw compared to where the man who'd sat beside her on it was. She thumbed over to her texts, found the pictures Hastings had sent. She sighed and shook her head. It already seemed like a dream. She reminded herself to upload these pictures in particular onto her laptop first chance she got.

Jane paid for her meal and headed back out toward the little bay, keeping her head down and glancing around her from time to time, just in case the "assistant" was around. She didn't see him, and kept going until she reached that same circular observation area she'd stood in the night before. Hat and sunglasses long since put away in her bag, she looked up. Her eyes snapped to the Southern Cross. Young-Sook had warned her of what she already knew, that the stars would be less brilliant here in sprawling Sydney than outside the city, but the skies were clear and the Southern Cross easily recognizable. She extended her right arm and drew an invisible line connecting the stars. _Gacrux to Acrux. Becrux to Delta Crucis. Epsilon Crucis,_ she added, reaching toward a fainter star just inside the cross and "touching" it gently. She gave a light laugh, little more than a rapid exhale through her nose and over a contented smile.

A chill went up the back of her neck and she whipped her head around. She'd lost all awareness of her surroundings. A dozen or so tourists milled about, talking, taking photos, a few looking up at the sky as she had been. None paid any attention to her. None looked familiar.

She gazed back up at the Southern Cross, but her concerted efforts to force the afternoon encounter out of her thoughts had crumbled. She had been so excited to be able to see it, even before she got here. The stars now blurred before her eyes and she pictured Thor shooting up into the sky above Norway and disappearing into those green folds of light. If she called, could he hear her? Would he come back for her? Give her a second chance at that trip to Asgard? _Calgon, take me away,_ she thought sarcastically.

She thought his name with all her might, but she knew she would never actually say it, just in case he _could_ somehow hear. That would be childish. She'd been ecstatic over this opportunity. Thanked everyone involved too many times to count. Imagined herself finally being able to have a real career. To earn a little respect from her peers. Pulling out now would be humiliating. _Stupid Jane Foster. First chance she gets to do any real work and she can't take the heat and runs scurrying home._

No. Not an option. So this Lucas Cane was her assistant. That's what _he_ thought. She could tell him to assist by running spurious computer simulations while she did the real work. Maybe she could get him assigned to kitchen duty. She grinned at that thought. _So, Lucas, what's Jane been up to today? I don't know, sir, I've been peeling potatoes all afternoon._ It could work. It _would_ work. She would _make _it work.

_Suck it up, Jane. You're doing this._

/_  
_

* * *

/

Loki held a non-functioning camera – no more than a discarded soda can he'd transformed to look like a camera – in front of his right eye. His left eye was fixed on Jane. Suddenly her posture changed, straightening up stiffly. He knew what was about to happen, but he wasn't concerned. He merely shifted his gaze for a moment. Her head whipped around and her eyes swept over his face but continued right past him. She settled down a bit, angled her head upward again. He lowered the false camera, moved a few feet away from her, and took a seat on a bench that allowed him to keep her in view. He released an unavoidable sigh of relief.

Loki had walked away from Jane that afternoon without looking back, for he knew there was a good chance she would be watching. For some reason she did not want him around, and he needed her to believe she had gotten what she wanted.

Once he'd melted into the crowd, he did turn back, but by then he was no longer Loki, or Lucas Cane. He'd taken on the rounder, mustached face of Mohsin Tarkani and darkened his hands – the only other visible part of him – to match Mohsin's skin tone. The color and cut of his clothing was transformed as well, but his shoes he left the same; after the incident in Melfort he had forgotten to test whether or not he could manipulate the appearance of his right foot. No harm befell him from this use of magic, and while he was still at a loss to understand Odin's rules, he suspected that so long as he did not interact with anyone as Mohsin, he would not be considered to be causing mischief.

So he'd followed. Followed her to the Opera House and watched as she reached out to touch its tiles only a few feet away from where he had earlier. Followed her as she entered the Royal Botanical Gardens and meandered her way through its grounds. He lingered in the same places she did, read the signs posted to provide information on each specimen of tree. He was a master of surveillance and was confident she never suspected anyone was following her at all – he kept his distance, never looked directly at her, and varied his position with respect to hers. He let the distance grow too great and almost lost her just once, when he was distracted by a strangler fig. According to the sign, it was essentially a parasitic species, starting life on an established tree and sending down roots all around its host until it enveloped it, ultimately starving the host of sunlight and nutrients and killing it. It was ingenious, really. After all, the parasite needed to survive as well.

He followed her out of the gardens and into Hyde Park, watched her as she stared at a fountain and at the tree-lined path leading away from it. In exasperation and out of reflex he formulated a thought to slip into her mind, a simple suggestion that she has done enough walking for the day, but he caught himself before sending it. That kind of manipulation would likely do more harm than good to his aching foot.

Luckily she was also disinclined to continue further, and while she did not take advantage of any of the benches in the area, she at least turned back toward Circular Quay. When she paused outside a restaurant then entered it, he decided not to follow but to instead wait outside. He found a bench across the street but in view of the restaurant's entrance and dropped himself gratefully onto it. When he was certain no one was looking his way, he drew his hand lightly across his body and watched as his newly purchased clothes appeared again, then flexed his jaw and let his face and hands shift back to their natural state. To the unnatural state Odin had created, the state that existed through no effort of his own whatsoever.

Not for the first time he stared at his pale hands and wondered how Odin had done it. Loki could not change his form indefinitely; manipulation of matter and energy took a certain amount of effort, a certain amount of concentration. Through study and natural ability it took Loki far less effort and concentration than perhaps anyone else who dabbled in such sorcery, but he like everyone else – including Odin – had his limits.

He crossed his right leg over his left, so that not even the tiniest amount of weight pressed against his foot. It was a relief.

He turned his attention back to the restaurant, as though he could see Jane inside. His eyes narrowed and his jaw tightened. He'd planned well for this encounter. He'd made himself the perfect assistant, the perfect person to win her trust. Made himself close to her, but not so close that they would know the same people and he would risk exposure. Bridged their contact with SHIELD to gain her acceptance of him. Smiled at her with all the charm he could muster, despite the exceedingly awkward situation her unexpected reaction created.

Why did she apparently welcome Thor with open arms but want nothing to do with him?

Anger flared in him. Even here, worlds away from his supposed brother, in a new identity, he was still in Thor's shadow.

He had offered himself up as an inferior, a lesser to her greater, a student to her teacher. And still she rejected him, making him feel less than inferior, less than even a shadow. An unwanted tag-along to be cast off at the first opportunity.

He pictured Jane telling him he should go home, and realized Jane's face had partly morphed into someone else's, someone he hadn't thought about in many centuries. He could barely remember what she looked like, and so her face blurred with Jane's.

Her name was Birna, and she was the first person Loki had ever truly hated.

She had started off as little more than a pest. Shehad been the unwanted tag-along, and Loki and Thor both had cast her off again and again. But she kept at it, showing up wherever the brothers went. Late one afternoon they had repurposed a park for a battleground and were practicing their swordsmanship lessons with each other; they were very young men, little more than boys, still receiving their training. Something distracted Thor, and he missed the warning signs – the slight change in posture, the tensing of Loki's hands and shoulders. Loki did not anticipate _Thor's_ failure to anticipate and block him, and he was unable to sufficiently adjust the arc of his blade before he had sliced into Thor's left arm. They had long since graduated from wooden training swords, and blood poured from the deep wound. Thor stood in shock for a moment, then opened his mouth to yell. Loki cringed away from him ready to beg for his brother's forgiveness, but Thor was looking over his shoulder.

_Get out of here right now, Birna!_ he bellowed.

Loki spun around in time to see the girl land hard on the ground beneath a tree and take off racing out of the park, her skirts and long dark hair billowing out behind her. He turned back to Thor whose eyes followed her all the way out. His breath came in heavy puffs full of rage and pain.

_Thor…_

_It's not your fault, Loki. It's mine. It's _hers. _I know you didn't mean to do it. Just…will you go get the healing stones?_

Loki dropped his bloody sword and raced off to the edge of the park where they'd deposited their books, two additional swords, a canister of water, and, most importantly, a small bag of healing stones in case of any accident. When he returned, Thor was sitting on a small curved bench under another tree.

_Give me your arm._ Thor grunted as he lifted his arm. Loki grasped the elbow with his left hand and with his right he withdrew a stone and crushed it slowly over the gash. Thor's arm twitched – he'd always found the sensation of the healing stones working their magic to be uncomfortable – and Loki looked up from his work to see Thor's eyes on the path Birna had taken out of the park.

For the next few weeks, neither brother saw Birna at all. Thor began to feel guilty about how he had shouted at her; what happened in the park had been entirely an accident. He tried to seek her out, and failed many times before showing up at her home and demanding to speak with her; the prince and heir's demand was met.

Things changed rapidly after that. The tag-along was invited to join them at times, but she was an awkward third wheel that Loki wished would go away. Thor got annoyed with him when he tried to talk him out of bringing her along on their activities, so he gave up and grudgingly accepted her presence. Then one day as the three of them hiked along a forest stream, Thor and Birna chatting about some dull thing while Loki sulked a few paces behind them, he realized for the first time that something fundamental had changed.

Loki was now the tag-along.

He halted, fell still. Thor and Birna kept going. He waited, testing, and before long they were so far ahead of him he could no longer see them. He felt tears well up in eyes. That stupid _girl_ was stealing his brother and his best friend.

Misery and self-pity soon quickly folded over into anger. He would make her pay for this. And more importantly he would make Thor regret ignoring him and leaving him behind. He took a few steps out into the stream, the shallow water darkening the leather of his boots. He found a suitably large rock and worked his foot tightly underneath it, then added another rock to the side, pinning his foot in place. Gritting his teeth, he twisted and yanked his body around to the right with as much force and velocity as he could, crying out in pain as he both felt and heard something snap. He lost his balance and fell backward as fire burned up his leg. Unable to break his fall, he slammed into the rocks and pebbles that littered the streambed; pain exploded through his head in particular. He stopped screaming – without realizing he'd ever started – when Thor suddenly appeared above him, the horror on his face unmistakable.

_Brother! What happened! Are you all right?_

He might have had something sharp-tongued to say, perhaps something about brothers sticking together, but the words died on his lips and all he could think was that this was the dumbest idea he'd ever had in his life. Then the world with Thor at its center faded to black, and he would remember nothing else from the rest of the day except for a moment's consciousness while being carried over Thor's shoulder.

His body too young and weak to withstand such abuse, Loki had received an ankle fracture, a torn ligament, and a skull fracture for his impromptu efforts. And it hadn't even worked. The first time he woke in the Healing Room, his family had been sitting around him full of worry, and Thor's hand had been gripping Loki's arm so tightly it hurt. The second time he woke, Thor and Birna were chatting and sitting together against the wall several feet away, and did not notice him awake and watching them for several minutes. They were holding hands.

Jane appeared at the restaurant door, wresting Loki from his memories.

He quickly shifted back to his disguise, and once her back was to him he stood to follow. He noticed how she kept her eyes turned downward, as if afraid she would trip and fall. He shook his head at her. Her posture invited attack, and this city surely had its share of violent criminals like any other. He briefly considered what he would do if she _were_ attacked. If Lucas Cane saved her, that could actually work out quite well…until she asked herself how he happened to be there at just the right time. He decided he would do nothing unless there was a risk of her death; in that case Mohsin Tarkani would save her. For now she was his only beacon on this wretched planet, and he was not willing to let her die.

She did not need any saving, it turned out, and before long Loki found himself sitting on that bench in the little round viewing area jutting out into Sydney Cove, watching her out of the corner of his eye as she stared up at the stars. He found himself looking up at them too. They were different from the ones he'd seen in Canada and the United States. Perhaps that was what she found so intriguing about them; it wasn't as though they were moving or doing anything else interesting, not to the naked eye at least.

Jane moved to a bench herself, thankfully not the one he was on. He allowed himself to relax again; if she was sitting she wasn't going anywhere for a while.

He thought back to Birna, whose name still rankled him after so many years. He had learned from that painful debacle. First, that hurting _himself_ was a terrible solution to a problem. Second, that all problems should be treated the same, regardless of emotional involvement. They should be properly identified then analyzed, sifted from hand to hand to separate out all their elements, possible solutions weighed and compared, possible reactions considered and planned for. He'd played pranks with his nascent magic and his own physical hands, he'd manipulated through clever lies and half-truths. And _that_ worked. Of course, there had been another girl not long after Birna, and not long after that Loki discovered his own interest in the fairer sex, which to Loki's secret delight had made Thor jealous, not that Loki spent much time thinking about Thor at that time. His relationship with Thor stabilized as they both learned that giving each other space for other relationships did not diminish who they were to each other as brothers and best friends, bound as they were to each other with "invisible thread."

So Birna, in the end, was inconsequential, a tiny blip on the long timeline of his life. Except that in some ways, this was Birna all over again. A problem to be solved like any other, despite its personal connection to him. Just as it had been then, magic would be of limited use. He would have to find another way.

Jane had opened herself up to Thor, but had rejected _him_. What had drawn her to Thor? He had watched through the eyes of the Destroyer, seen how she stayed in that town when she should have left for her own safety, how concerned for him she was, how she ran to his side when the Destroyer dealt him what should have been a fatal blow. Loki thought of the ways he differed from Thor, the surface-level things which she had already observed. Thor's brawn and bulk; Loki's leaner, slighter build. Thor's gregarious, infectious zest for life; Loki's quieter contemplative nature. Blond hair and blue eyes; black hair and green eyes. He had no way of knowing whether any of these things mattered to her, and he couldn't change them, not easily anyway, not now that he'd already met her and set plans in motion.

He thought about the circumstances of Thor's arrival. He would have been weakened. He would have felt sad, abandoned, alone. Perhaps she was the type who liked to fix broken things? Thor was certainly broken after he'd visited him in that New Mexico SHEILD facility. Loki could be broken; the thought that he _was _broken was there at the back of his consciousness but he pushed it away before it could fully emerge. Instead, his thoughts raced back through what he'd learned of her during his own time on Midgard. He'd hoped to encounter her, but they'd hidden her away from him and he'd had no time to pursue her. So he'd searched computer records and questioned Erik Selvig, who'd been happy to tell him anything he asked. Still, he'd absorbed mountains of information during that time, and many of those memories were fleeting, a wisp here and there among countless such wisps. He collected a few of them, put them together like pieces of a puzzle. Too many pieces were missing to perceive a complete picture, but not too many to conceive an initial plan.

* * *

/

_Although it has nothing in particular to do with the mood of the chapter, I'll confess to having listened to Slim Dusty's "Waltzing Mathilda" (from 2003 _Very Best of_ album) quite a few times while writing & researching for this chapter and previous. Mostly because the chorus is fun to sing along to. And, like Jane, just in case I would forget I was "in Australia." The flashback also made me recall a song I hadn't heard in ages, ABBA's "Susie Hangaround." This is probably the only time I'll mention music. I tend to sing along which tends to result in my having lots of fun but not actually writing anything._

_In the next chapter there's a glimpse of Asgard; things have gotten tense there. And Loki begins to re-evaluate his approach to Jane._


	9. (8) Resolve

_I hope you enjoy. And...read carefully. ;-)_

/**  
**

* * *

**Beneath**

Chapter Eight – Resolve

Jane did not see her assistant-slash-spy again until she was seated in a business class lounge at Sydney's airport trying to squish the small plush stuffed koala bear she'd bought with her last Australian dollars into her laptop carrier. She took a deep breath and tried to prepare herself for another awkward conversation.

"Good morning, Dr. Foster," he said, dropping into an armchair across from her. He apparently viewed flying as a formal occasion, she thought, briefly noting his gray-on-white seersucker suit, the whole nine yards with slacks, vest, and jacket, over a white dress shirt and a forest green tie.

"Good morning, Mr. Cane," she answered, the words sounding stilted and false. Not too many people called her _doctor_, and she wasn't in the habit of calling men somewhere around her own age _mister_.

"I trust you enjoyed the rest of your afternoon?" He draped one long leg elegantly over the other.

"Yeah, it was nice. I went for a walk. And you?"

"I climbed the bridge," he answered with an enthusiastic smile and nod. "The views were marvelous. Then I wandered around for a while, and when it got dark I went over to the Sydney Tower…the Tower Eye I believe it's called. Beautiful clear skies last night. You're wearing some of what I saw."

_What is _that_ supposed to mean?_ she thought, the unspoken reaction clear on her face.

He pointed at her chest.

Her eyebrows somehow made it up higher. She glanced down…at the Australian flag with the Southern Cross emblazoned on her blue T-shirt. She picked up her cup of cooling espresso and took a drink. "It's just…you know, it's the flag." She didn't view flying as a formal occasion.

He laughed at her. "I know."

She smiled awkwardly, briefly widened her eyes, and buried her face in her coffee cup again.

He absently rubbed his upper lip, rapidly evaluating his options for how best to restart the conversation and guide it somewhere constructive. "Was it your first chance to see it, too? The Southern Cross, I mean." He'd had a better-than-expected lager at a pub after she'd returned to her hotel and taken the opportunity to ask questions, including about those stars she'd pointed to in the sky with such an imbecilic expression on her face. The Sydney Tower Eye he'd read about in his collection of tourist brochures.

"Mm-hm," she said with a nod.

She wasn't helping at all. Talented manipulator though he was, it was difficult to direct a one-sided conversation without being blatantly obvious. He couldn't understand why this wasn't working.

Jane wondered if it was time to point apologetically to her coffee cup and excuse herself to the restroom. And stay there until boarding for her flight was announced.

"So, everything starts today, hm? I can't tell you how excited I am. But you…you seem…I don't know, sad, perhaps. Is anything wrong?"

"Hm? No…I'm not sad. I mean, I guess I'm sad to be leaving here after so short a time, but I'm really looking forward to this."

"No second thoughts, then?"

"Second thoughts?" she asked, glancing up at him then back down at the safety of the coffee to which she was devoting so much of her attention. _Only the irrational ones inspired by _your_ sudden appearance_, she thought nastily.

"Sure. It's a big commitment. A long time to be away from your family."

Jane frowned into the coffee, eyes narrowing slightly. _That was rather out of the blue, Mr. Cane. Exactly how much of my file did SHIELD show you?_ "Nothing I can't handle," she said a moment later. She looked up into his green eyes and showed him everything she felt for him at that moment with her own. "If you'll excuse me, I need to make a stop at the ladies' room." Forgetting to point to the coffee she grabbed her bag, stood up, and stomped away.

/

* * *

/

Loki sat staring at her empty chair, the Lucas Cane smile that was apparently a complete waste of his considerable efforts gone. Nothing he tried worked. He had been as friendly, as polite, as he could possibly be. He had given her the perfect opportunity to share her passion for the cosmos. Then to tell him of the loss of her family. He was prepared to share her passion as well as her sorrow. And she had inexplicably responded as though she were being provoked. As though she _knew_ she were being manipulated.

How had Thor managed to even have a conversation with this woman? She was impossible. And Thor would not have been so polite, he suspected. Not arrogant, entitled Thor.

Another failure. Another rejection.

Perhaps she didn't like "polite." A smile spread over his face. He wasn't overly fond of it himself, not for some time, anyway. All his past politeness hadn't gained him much in the end. He longed to discard this pretense, this smiling simpleton. To restore the crispness of her memories of him, and transform himself before her eyes, filling her with terror. He would command her to kneel and she would cower on the ground like the lowly little creature she was, small even for the rest of her species. She'd had the audacity to try to make _him_ feel inferior, and he had a thousand creative ways to return that favor. She'd put him in a position of having to prove himself, a familiar position that he now utterly rejected; most certainly he should not have to prove himself to _her_.

But unlike Thor, patience was one of his strengths. Revealing himself to her now would gain him absolutely nothing beyond a moment of pleasure. For now, he could wait. This was a game at which he was a master. One way or another, he would win. In time. And there would be plenty of that.

/

* * *

/

Jane stared out the window of yet another airplane, her back straight and her body tense. For the first time she didn't marvel over the perks of business class travel. An offer of champagne after boarding was expected, and accepted. Twice. She waited impatiently for her hot multi-course breakfast, then did little more than push the food around when it came. All the while, she could swear she felt Lucas Cane staring at her.

He was two rows back, on the other side of the aisle, but he was very tall and could probably see her at least partially. _Who gave you the right!_ she raged at him. She hadn't yet put a coherent fully-formed thought together about the whole thing – just random invectives and roiling indignation that she couldn't quite put into words even in her own mind. She saw right through him. SHIELD had obviously instructed him to get close to her, and when she didn't respond to his efforts he went for the jugular. Not acceptable. She wanted to turn around in her seat and shoot more daggers at him but on the other hand she never wanted to see him again in her life.

And she was going to be seeing him every single day of her life for nine months. For the first time she unhesitatingly, without even the tiniest reservation at all, wished she had said yes to Thor's invitation. What did any of this matter in the long run anyway? Science, research, discovery, respect, career – those were fleeting, immaterial. People mattered. Friendship, love, warmth. Those mattered. But they could be fleeting, too.

Jane sighed, absently pulling at the snap on one of the pockets of her tan cargo pants. Her thoughts were seething and jumbled. She just couldn't believe SHIELD would go this far. She'd checked her e-mail the night before, and sure enough, there was the message happily informing her that they'd secured an additional position to send her an assistant. For the first time in a while, she wondered how much that organization really supported her work. Maybe they didn't want her to succeed at all. Interstellar travel had not gone very well for them ever since Thor had come to town and Loki had sent some fire-breathing metal behemoth to kill him and everything else that got in its way. Maybe she was closer to solving some of the mysteries of wormhole physics than she thought. No one had bothered her in Tromso, not that she could tell. The new guy, Merrick Rollins, had asked her a few questions, but he was clearly not a scientist and had not really understood the answers. She began to wonder if Rollins was an initial failed attempt to get her back under a watchful eye once the Chitauri attack was deemed to be truly, definitively repelled. That would make Lucas Cane an improved second try. He hadn't mentioned anything about his research focus, but he probably _was_ a real scientist; they would have learned that lesson from Rollins. And he was no unwitting pawn, not with that pointed little comment about her family.

About an hour into the flight she finally began to calm down. She thought back to Young-Soo's words of encouragement in the face of her faltering confidence. _You're in the door._ _It doesn't matter how you got there. Now it's up to you._ Something like that. Thor wasn't here. There was no Plan B. _This_ was the plan, and it would remain the plan. She had a golden opportunity, and she would make the most of it. No matter what.

_Game on, Lucas Cane._

/

* * *

/

At Passport Control Jane gained another stamp in her passport, but she was too distracted now to enjoy it. Lucas was in the line to her right, two people still in front of him. She smiled at the woman who told her to enjoy her stay in New Zealand and made it to baggage claim as quickly as she could. Getting off the plane early though made this a hurry-up-and-wait scenario. And within a few minutes she was waiting by Lucas.

"I don't know about you but these neverending flights are growing tiresome. Not to mention the constant time zone changes," he said once he took up a position beside her at the baggage claim conveyor belt.

She nodded, tried to look thoughtful. No way was she going to even pretend to engage him in conversation now. Later she knew she wouldn't be able to avoid it, but small talk was done.

"I started out in Melfort, three days ago I think. Canada. How about you?"

Jane glanced over at him surprise. She would have expected Toronto, since that's where he went to school. So he said. The next chance she had she would be googling that claim. She had heard of Melfort, the "City of Northern Lights." "Norway," she said. She was pretty sure he already knew that.

"Norway," he repeated, nodding appreciatively, she saw out of the corner of her eye. "I've never had the pleasure. My father went there once. I've heard some of the stories of his visit."

Luckily the conveyor belt started moving before there was time for any more awkward non-conversation. As bags began tumbling out Jane started drifting away from her SHIELD sidekick, ostensibly to get a better view of the luggage. She made a show of craning her head around to see between the others who had positioned themselves more aggressively in front of the belt, not that there was much acting required. Her short stature was providing her the perfect excuse to again try to lose Lucas Cane.

And lose him she did. By some miracle her two suitcases appeared before his one. As soon as she had both she hefted them onto a cart and double-timed it toward Customs. Once past this final checkpoint she stole a glance over her shoulder and couldn't see her minder anywhere.

She stopped short when she made it through the doors into a crowd of people waiting for arrivals. Her eyes had been drawn immediately to her name on a large white card. Right under her name _Lucas Cane_ was written. She nodded in submission to fate. _Well, you should have known. What, were they going to send two different vans to pick up two people on the same flight?_

"Hi, I'm Jane Foster," she said, pushing her cart over toward the curly-haired brunette holding the sign.

The two women exchanged greetings, and Alexa happily informed her they had one more passenger to pick up. They passed the time with small talk while waiting for Lucas to arrive. When at last he appeared, spotted her, and flashed her a big smile, she gave him an I'm-being-polite-but-not-really smile and began maneuvering her cart further out of the crowd. Alexa led them both out into Christchurch's heat and humidity to their shuttle, and they got on their way.

They passed open green areas and residential neighborhoods and soon turned onto a wider street that deposited them in a suburban business district and in front of a non-descript strip hotel. Jane was long past being surprised when she realized Lucas was assigned to the same hotel.

"It's not exactly four-star, but it's clean and the staff are friendly. We've got a real crunch on accommodation here because of the earthquake," Alexa was saying.

Jane nodded. She wanted to ask if it was possible to go for a walk downtown, but she refused to give Lucas any hint about what she might do with her afternoon. She shrugged off his offer of help with her bags and managed to drag them up into the hotel lobby while keeping them upright except for once when she had to get them up a short step. "Thanks," she muttered to him when he bounded forward and righted them with remarkable grace and agility.

Checked in and key in hand, Jane said her friendliest "See you tomorrow!" to Lucas as she pulled her bags behind her, back down that little step, and off to her room.

Not more than a minute after she'd gotten herself and her luggage inside her room with its neon multi-colored bedspread and little kitchenette – she'd been about to check out the bathroom – she heard a knock on her door. She pushed a suitcase out of the way to clear a path back to the door and looked out the peephole. _Here we go again._ _This guy doesn't give up._

She tucked her hair behind her ears and opened the door. "What can I do for you, Lucas?" _Translation: Did you not get the last fifty-three hints?_

He stared at her with an odd grin. A little mischievous. He was standing a little too close. A little presumptuous. She felt intimidated and…and something else she couldn't quite process yet. But she realized for the first time that he was rather attractive, with skin like smooth porcelain and eyes like emeralds and hair like ebony and he was very very tall.

And then he spoke and a very very weird moment was over. "I was wondering if you'd like to go into the city. Wander around a bit and have a cup of tea or coffee. Perhaps go for a hike. It's a beautiful day."

Oh, yes. Moment over. Go for a hike? The only way he would know she liked hiking was if he had read the file SHIELD had on her. They knew everything, except apparently whether she preferred tea or coffee. "No, thanks. I'm going to keep taking advantage of the time to myself."

"All right. I thought you might say that. See you tomorrow then?"

"Right," Jane said with a nod if not much of a smile. His smile perhaps made up for her lack of one and he turned and headed off to her left. Something wasn't right, she realized as she watched him for a moment. His suitcase. _What did he do with his suitcase?_ She shrugged and closed the door, thinking he must have already taken it to his room.

/

* * *

/

Jane jumped when she turned around in the hotel lobby and bumped right into Lucas.

"I'm terribly sorry," he said, his right palm out toward her. His jacket, which he hadn't been wearing when he stopped by her room, was back on.

"Are you following me?" she couldn't help blurting out. Maybe she needed to take a lesson from Darcy's playbook and get a taser.

"I-" Loki stopped himself. He'd been about to apologize. Again. "No, of course not. I came up here to get some tourist information. And we happen to be staying at the same hotel."

She took a steadying breath. _Nine months_, she reminded herself. _You have to put up with this guy for nine months._ "_I_'_m_ sorry. You just startled me. But I meant what I said."

"What do you mean?" he asked, his brow knitted slightly.

"That I want to take advantage of the time to myself while it lasts. Okay?"

"Yes, of course." The words tumbled out quickly, earnestly, smoothly enough to repair ruffled feathers, he hoped.

"Okay," she said, nodding.

He mustered a smile but she could tell this one wasn't half as glowing as all the other ones he'd shown her. "See you tomorrow then?"

Jane tried to smile but it came out twisted. _Translation: You are one weird guy._ She walked past him and made her way outside to wait for the rental car company to bring the car she'd just reserved through the hotel. She hoped she hadn't picked up a psycho stalker for this little trip. She hoped this guy had actually passed his psych eval and not somehow faked his way through it. She sat up a little straighter, glanced behind her through the glass doors of the small lobby. SHIELD had arranged for her exams. They would have handled his as well, and there was nothing to stop them from submitting fabricated reports.

He was talking and looking down at something on the counter between him and the friendly receptionist. The receptionist was looking at him. Jane rolled her eyes and turned back toward the street. She really had expected him to be lurking just inside the doors and watching her.

Just as her car pulled up and the driver got out to greet her, Lucas emerged from the lobby. Their eyes met only briefly, and he gave her his little flat-palmed wave before continuing right past her and turning into the sidewalk, headed toward the downtown area. She got in the front passenger seat, and was grateful when they pulled around and turned left, away from the city.

/

* * *

/

Loki walked down Riccarton Avenue glowering. He reached a hand under his jacket and pulled at something that was not there, withdrawing the seersucker "driving cap" that matched his suit. He pulled it on tightly over his head. The saleslady in Sydney had not quite convinced him that he did not look silly in it, but he felt freer to drop his Lucas mask with his face partially in shadow.

Why had Jane thought he was following her? He had been, of course, but she had no way of knowing that. And he no longer had a need to follow her now. He knew exactly where she was spending the night and exactly where she would be at one o'clock tomorrow afternoon. That was enough.

Besides, he already knew exactly where she was headed now, too. He'd seen the marked map that was still on the front desk after she left.

It was time to change tactics. With every smile he offered her she came closer to hating him. _It usually takes them centuries to hate me_, he thought, his lips curling dryly upward, then wondered if it were not more likely the other way around, and it had instead taken him centuries to realize they had always hated him. Hatred could be useful. But not in this case. He needed trust. Time to assess her. To assess his options. For now he would back off. Then he would spar with her once more and let her have a taste of his anger.

At least she had finally said something to him, instead of him having to initiate every bit of communication between them…even if it was only to accuse him of following her.

Following the directions the receptionist had given him, Loki entered the Riccarton Bush, a small old growth forest with a thirty-minute loop trail running through it, the woman had said. Pausing to open the first door through the fence into a small cage-like entryway, he read the large sign that was posted there, announcing that he was entering a "kiwi zone" and no dogs were allowed. Next to the word "kiwi" was a silhouette of an oddly-shaped round-bodied bird. He briefly wondered if the bird had any connection to the fruit, which he rather enjoyed.

Once through the second door and out of the cage, he picked a direction and began making his way through the park. He wondered what "old growth" meant on Midgard. The trees took interesting forms, some with tall straight trunks and some stockier with twisting roots skimming the forest floor, some familiar from Sydney's gardens – but he doubted any of them had lived longer than him.

His foot was beginning to ache, so he took a seat on the next empty bench he came to along the wood plank path, under the shade of a stout tree he couldn't identify. He had forgotten again to run his little test when he reached his atrocious little hotel room. Mohsin had been right about hotels – though perhaps not in the right way. Loki didn't care that they were impersonal. He did care that they were garishly furnished with furniture built for children and smelled of the cigarette smoke of the prior occupant. He had taken one look at the place and decided he would not be spending the night there.

Loki was not forgetful. He admitted to himself that he had been avoiding testing the foot. No longer. He passed his right thumb over his left and watched as the left turned fiery red and grew a talon. No problem there. He reversed the change. He leaned down and reached for his right foot, for the particles that surrounded it. He shook his head and reached harder. Tugged. Wrenched. Nothing. It was like being a child all over again. Knowing that something could be done but finding himself wholly incapable of doing it no matter how hard he tried. He would grow frustrated when energy and matter refused to conform to his instruction, sometimes self-destructively frustrated, until he learned that such behavior only made things worse. He'd learned that lesson only a little more than 900 years before Thor, he thought with a snort.

He reached up toward his ankle, and at just above his ankle line he was able to make his leather boots appear. He should have taken more precise note of it earlier, but it appeared to be no worse than it was before. Footsteps approached; he released the changes and straightened the hem of his slacks. A young couple pushing a baby stroller passed by. When they were out of sight again, he decided to check his left foot for good measure. He was reassured to see his white buck respond easily to his will, morphing into the familiar leather boot. Just as he was about to revert it, he froze. At the tip of his toe, the boot was not black but gray. And when he peered closer, he saw that at the very tip it was not gray but white. That, he was certain, had not been there before.

Sobered, Loki returned to his normal form and sat up stiffly.

This raised many questions. He had lost control of some of his magic. And with difficulty appearing in his left foot, it couldn't be attributed to the wound-that-will-never-heal on the sole of his right foot. But it could not be magic solely over the appearance of his own body. Loki could wreak havoc perfectly well while looking exactly as he did, and if he were forced to physically change clothes every time he felt like being seen in something different…well, it would be an annoyance but one he could certainly live with. Odin had said that he would lose control of magic in general, not magic for changing his appearance. And that if he did not learn from his mistakes all magic would be lost. Why had he spoken in such vague terms? He really should have asked for that manual.

He thought back to Thor's banishment. Loki had been stunned, and had not questioned the terms of that punishment either. He had assumed it to be permanent, for the All-Father had given no indication that there was any means for Thor to come home unless of course Odin for some reason himself decided Thor had had enough punishment. It was only through his mother he had learned that there was hope for Thor. And it was only through his own rash ill-conceived decision to send the Destroyer, he thought bitterly – and not for the first time – that Thor was given the opportunity to make good on that hope.

_There's always a purpose to everything your father does._ He had asked about hope, and she had spoken of purpose. What kind of hope was there for _him_? What kind of purpose was there, other than to punish and humiliate, in Odin's curses? Could he regain what was lost? What if he "learned from his mistakes," whatever that meant? Could he reverse what had happened? And what would it mean to lose all magic? Loki couldn't conceive of such a thing. He'd had at least some instinctive grasp of magical tendrils for literally as long as he could remember. It was part of the very fiber of his being. Would it kill him to lose all magic? He was fairly confident he could avoid harming humans, at least in the short term; he was less worried about the curse that Odin had burned into his wrist. But avoid using magic to cause mischief? There was a reason the ancient Norse mythology referred to him as the "god of mischief." This, too, was something instinctive to him, a part of his nature going back to the earliest pranks he played on Thor as a very young child, ruining or vanishing his toys, when Thor hadn't a clue what was going on except that Loki was somehow behind it all.

For most of his questions, unfortunately, it seemed there was no way to determine an answer until it was too late. But there was at least one question he could test. He moved to the far side of the bench and waited as nearly two hours passed, until finally someone joined him. To his left sat a young woman with long straight blond hair. She was wearing shorts and a T-shirt, probably out getting some exercise. She had a coffee cup in her right hand, a cell phone in her left hand, and somehow she was manipulating the phone with a finger from each hand.

"Excuse me, miss. I know this may sound rather odd, but, can I do something…kind for you?"

Her face had jolted up to him as soon as he'd spoken. Now she looked at him with some mixture of confusion and suspicion.

"Anything you'd like. Just name it. You have heard of those among you with uncommon abilities? I assure you, it is in my power to grant you almost anything."

She scrunched up her nose and a second later vaulted up from the bench. Loki jerked away as soon as he saw her start to thrust the coffee cup forward, but dark brown muck still dripped from his left shoulder and soaked through the cotton of the jacket and vest and into the crisp linen shirt beneath it. "Pervert!" she yelled before running off.

He barely gave her a second glance, merely clenched his teeth and ran his right hand down his shoulder in small circles. The coffee separated from his clothing and pooled onto the ground near his feet. He supposed he would have to get used to the scorns and mocking again, for a while at least. He'd been used to them before…but before he'd been able to do something about it. The same person rarely mocked him twice. Except Thor. It was different between them, though. They mocked each other incessantly, all in jest, all in good nature; Loki rarely took it personally and the same was true of Thor. At least that was the way it used to be.

Loki stood up, brushed off his dry and unblemished clothes, and turned the opposite way the girl had headed. It would not help matters if he had to harm a few Midgardian police officers. As he walked he glanced around him and, seeing no one, changed his face and hands into Mohsin's again and changed his clothing from the waist up to a dark blue long-sleeved pullover.

He exited Riccarton Bush and turned toward the central part of the city that had suffered recent earthquake damage. He would remain in this form for the rest of the day, just in case. He thought back on his latest test. It didn't count as a negative result; the test itself had failed. He had known the woman would find his offer strange and abrupt, but he also knew that the existence of the "Avengers" and others with abilities outstripping the normal human's had been widely reported in the media here. Midgard's people were not such fine specimens as Thor apparently thought if a simple unexpected offer of kindness elicited such a response. If he had wanted to proposition that woman, he could have found much clearer and more colorful means of doing so. He would have to try again, but this time the test would have to be much more carefully planned for and controlled.

/

* * *

/

"Can you see her?" Thor asked as soon as he reached Heimdall. He had been unable to ask for several days.

"Yes," Heimdall answered from his post at the door to the makeshift observatory.

"Is she well?"

"Yes." The answer came just as quickly, but he did not elaborate, and his voice lacked its usual warmth.

"What is it?" Thor asked, narrowing his eyes.

"I do not believe there is any cause for concern. She is safe and does not appear to worry over any danger."

"But? I need to know, old friend."

"Although I see her now, twice yesterday when I sought her out I could not find her."

Thor instinctively gripped Mjolnir more tightly. "Why not?" he asked, his voice dropping lower.

"I do not know. I will try to look upon her more often, but-"

"I know. Do what you can. I have a few minutes. Can you direct me to her?"

"I can. But it would be ill-advised."

"Heimdall…"

"She is in a small boat on cold open water."

Thor's eyebrows went up. Ill-advised indeed. The tesseract with its still untamed and unmastered power could send him to the floor of whatever body of water Jane was upon before it released him from its grip. And while even this was unlikely to do him real harm, it was very likely to take much longer than the few minutes he had before his next meeting with the war council.

"Very well. I will check again tonight or tomorrow. Is there any change that I will need to bring before the council?"

"No. The travelers are still in Jotunheim."

"Inform me the minute you see anything change."

"I will, my prince."

Thor started to turn, but slowly faced Heimdall again. "I know you are only trying to protect me…but please do not. If Jane is in trouble, I'll find a way to help her."

"Your first duty must be to Asgard."

Thor felt anger rising in him, but it was not directed at Heimdall. The gatekeeper and guardian of Asgard, as always, spoke the truth. The truth made him angry. "I know," Thor said calmly, then turned back toward the palace.

* * *

/

_If you've been wondering where Jane's going (I've only held off telling you for some 47,000 words now), all will be revealed in the next chapter. It's hard to give a preview for that chapter (9: Preparation) that isn't too much of a spoiler, so here are some particularly vague previews._

_Loki gets more new clothes, but he isn't as fond of these; and Loki is annoyed by an article about sheep (well, he's having a rough time of it, he's easily annoyed).  
_

_Did you like Loki getting coffee thrown on him? Or did you feel bad for him? Well, he's had more time on Earth to figure things out than Thor but he still essentially doesn't relate well to others, not unless he's had a chance to plan for it, and even then he's not doing so well with Jane! But those tables *will* turn. In time.  
_

_One final word about music: I broke down and bought the _Thor_ soundtrack, so now I mostly just keep that running continuously. No words = no singing along = I get writing done._

_Thank you for reading, reviews welcome. Excerpt from "Chapter 9: Preparation":  
_

* * *

_/  
_

He looked at himself in the mirror, only his eyes visible through the goggles and everything else hidden from view. At least he didn't have to be concerned about anyone recognizing him like this. Over his shoulder in the reflection he saw Jane was repacking her clothing. He turned and approached her.

"How do I look?" he asked.

[...] Jane glanced up at him quickly. "Pretty much like everybody else here," she said.

"I suppose so," he agreed. ___Appearances can deceive_, he thought. They had no idea they were letting a monster into their midst, and dressing it up to look just like them._  
_


	10. (9) Preparation

**Beneath**

Chapter Nine – Preparation

Trying to get used to the this-is-just-not-right feeling of her rental car extending out to her left instead of her right, Jane made her way back up northwest from coastal Akaroa to Christchurch. She had just added some seriously cool pictures to her phone and experiences to her life resume. She'd been able to sign up for a last-minute slot in the kayak of a tour guide leading a small group out into a protected area where she'd watched little white-flippered penguins and fur seals on rocky sea cliffs. They'd paddled into a cave and even out into the open Pacific where they'd seen two dolphins. She let her eyes flicker upward for a moment, thankful for yet another incredible experience. SHIELD or no SHIELD, the last few days had been full of "pinch me" moments.

This evening she would get a restaurant recommendation at the hotel, and tomorrow morning she was already booked for another tourist outing. At then at one o'clock she would take the first concrete step of the transition. She'd done online training. SHIELD had provided abbreviated fire fighting and medical trauma training at their Tromso facility – how they'd ever managed to put that together on such short notice _and_ convince the USAP to accept it she didn't know, though she suspected sizeable donations were involved in the latter. She'd had psychological, dental, and medical evaluations; "Turning Japanese" had once popped into her head, after which she'd begun to sing it silently to herself each time a doctor took a new picture. (And she'd carefully avoided mentioning her complicated fledgling relationship with a man from another planet whom the ancient Vikings had worshipped as a god, figuring it might unduly impact the psychologist's opinion of her mental fitness.) She'd taken five airplanes across three continents and exchanged one season for another.

But tomorrow for the first time she was suiting up, as her new acquaintance Tony Stark had put it.

And then it was on to the bottom of the world.

/

* * *

/

"Can you see her?" Thor asked in the early afternoon of the next day.

"Yes," Heimdall answered shifting his gaze toward Midgard and instantly finding Jane Foster. "And four times more I sought and found her since we spoke yesterday."

"Can you send me to her?"

"Yes. If you go now."

Without another word Thor continued past Heimdall toward the tesseract, and Heimdall fell into step behind him.

"Just as with the Bifrost, call for me when you are ready to return."

Thor nodded, then paused, hand in mid-air to place it over the tesseract. "Has Loki called for you?"

"He has not. I have not seen him since the first day he spent on Midgard. He has hidden himself from me, as expected."

"If he was with Jane…"

"She would be hidden as well. He is not with her."

Thor nodded. "Do it."

"Do not be tempted to bring her back with you, my prince. It is not known how a mortal would fare on a journey enabled by the tesseract."

Thor could only open his mouth before Heimdall activated the tesseract and sent him hurtling through a path violently ripped open to Midgard. Blue lightning crackled around him and his stomach clenched while from his mind he could not purge the horrific image of him returning to Asgard with Jane dead in his arms. _What if she had said yes…_

_/_

* * *

_/  
_

Jane checked her watch as she walked back toward her car – 11:25. She waved goodbye to a retired couple from Wisconsin who'd wound up on the same tour with her, down in the same general area of Akaroa she'd been yesterday. They'd had some nice Americans-bonding-overseas moments. She unlocked the doors and pulled the handle, only then noticing she was standing on the passenger side. Just like she had almost every other time she'd gone to her rental car. She closed the door that she'd managed to open only partway, just as a thud and a crackle of energy sounded behind her. She whirled around, dropping her keys.

Thor was standing some three or four feet away in what she assumed to be his full battle armor and regalia, even a shining golden helmet with wings on the sides, reminiscent of some of the drawings she'd seen in Erik's library book on Norse mythology. When her brain caught up with her eyes she remembered Larry and Fern and spun around. They were in their car and just starting up the engine. No one else was in the little parking lot.

"Jane, can we talk?" he asked, closing the distance between them and wrapping his left hand around her forearm. She turned back to him and saw Mjolnir in his right.

"Uh," she began, struggling unsuccessfully for words.

"I'm sorry, Jane, I don't have much time. Only a few minutes."

His gaze, always intense, felt heavy now, like the hand that gripped her arm a little too tightly to feel comfortable. "Of course, um, why don't you get in the driver's seat. I mean the passenger's seat. This seat," she said, fumbling for the keys in her purse.

"That looks…uncomfortable. Let's go into the trees over there," he said, pointing to a lightly wooded area that would similarly obscure him from casual view but not require his knees to touch his chest. He realized what she was searching for and bent down to retrieve her keys from the pebbly ground.

"Thanks. Okay, sure."

He wrapped his arm securely around her back and led her into the trees at a pace that was merely purposeful for him but difficult to keep up with for her.

"Thor, what's going on?" He'd never been this protective toward her before.

"First you must tell me, are you well, Jane?"

She looked up at him in confusion. "Very well, yes…and you?"

"Heimdall said that sometimes when he looks down on you he cannot find you."

"Um, well…I'm sorry, I don't understand what that means. I wasn't hiding or something. I'm right here. What's wrong?"

"Have you been doing anything unusual since I left you? Have you gone to any unusual places?"

Jane frowned, trying to follow where he was going with this, still having little success. "I guess that's a matter of perspective. For me it's been pretty unusual. I've been traveling a lot, and I've been to a lot of places I've never seen before. Places that are a long way from home. And airplanes. I've been on a lot of airplanes. Maybe Heimdall doesn't see people when they're in the air instead of on land?"

"I don't know. We don't really have such things on Asgard. Were you on an airplane recently? In the last day or two?"

"Yes. From Australia to here."

"Perhaps that's it, then. If so then I've no cause for worry. Where is here? It's warm, and it was cold when I left you just days ago," he asked, taking in Jane's lime-green short-sleeved V-neck T-shirt with some kind of drawing and witty saying on it that he couldn't quite figure out.

"New Zealand. We're in the Southern Hemisphere now. The seasons are opposite." Jane grimaced, thinking she'd probably just insulted his intelligence.

"Ah. Asgard…functions differently."

So Asgard didn't have hemispheres? That would mean Asgard wasn't _round…_wouldn't it? Maybe that wasn't what he meant. In any event, Jane was sure he hadn't understood, and of course there was no particular reason he should – she didn't have a clue how Asgard "functioned." But normally Thor would have asked her to explain. "So tell me, what's going on, Thor? Why are you so worried?"

"Because of Loki, and because…things are…complicated on Asgard right now, Jane. A state of war has existed between us and Jotunheim ever since…" Thor paused and sighed. "Ever since I did something foolish."

"Was that why you were banished?"

"Yes. Yes, it was. But the Frost Giants have no might. Not without the Ice Casket, which is in our safekeeping on Asgard. They have no means by which to travel among the realms without it. They can only raise angry fists toward Asgard and rain curses down upon us. They cannot touch us, no matter how mighty an army they may cobble together from their ruins. But something has changed. Svartalfheim – do you recall? One of the nine realms."

Jane nodded quickly.

"Svartalfheim has sent a delegation of some sort to Jotunheim. We do not know their purpose. But it could indicate the beginning of an alliance against us. It's exactly the kind of thing the Frost Giants would seek out – an ally who could benefit from the Frost Giants' strength and who could provide them with the means to reach Asgard. It could presage actual war, Jane. And it falls to me. The burden is heavy."

Jane stared up at him, blinking, unsure what to say. She could plainly see the weight on him in his posture and in his unguarded face and unfocused eyes. "Thor," she finally began, as gently and softly as she could, reaching up to caress his cheek, her fingertips brushing the cool metal of his helmet, "has your father…is he gone?"

"No," he answered, shaking his head and straightening up. Odin All-Father had surely never shown weakness such as he had allowed himself to lapse into here with Jane, so far from home. "No, he lives. He is in the Odinsleep. It is…I don't know how to explain it to you, Jane. He is very old, and he wields immeasurable power. He is the wisest and strongest man in all the nine realms. From time to time he must replenish his strength with something more than normal sleep, a magical sleep. And he seems to need it more and more. We have all been under a great strain, my father more so than any of us."

"I can imagine. I mean, I think I can. So, you're kind of like 'acting king' now? Until your father wakes up? And you have to make all the decisions in the meantime, while your enemies may be plotting an attack against you."

Thor had nodded throughout her statements and questions. "Exactly."

"A heavy burden," she said, reaching out for his hands and catching both of them in hers. "Do your friends help you? The ones who came to New Mexico?"

"Yes, they do," he answered with a proud smile. "The Warriors Three and Lady Sif. My mother as well. Volstagg is even now beginning to train our warriors for the types of battle we may expect if Jotunheim and Svartalfheim attack. He does this in my place."

Jane nodded, trying to force a smile. "You aren't supposed to be here."

Thor returned her forced smile. "No. But when Heimdall said he could not see you…I had to come. I had to be sure. There are only so many battles one man can fight at the same time."

"I understand. Now you know I'm safe, so don't worry about me. I can take care of myself. Focus your attention where it needs to be right now. On Asgard. On your people."

Thor bowed his head to her and brought her knuckles to his lips. He gave her goosebumps all over again – he was a sight to behold and she felt like someone forgot to inform her of the dress code.

"Will you be remaining here, then? In…Southern…"

Jane allowed a small laugh to escape. Thor normally paid much more attention to what she told him. "New Zealand. And no. I leave here tomorrow morning. I'm going to the South Pole. So I'll be on an airplane again. Tell Heimdall not to worry if he doesn't spot me. There's another airplane ride after that one, too. I'm really racking up the frequent flyer miles all of a sudden."

Thor wore his confused look again, which she found especially adorable with his winged helmet on his head. "You can explain that to me later. But you are going further south? To a pole?

"Ummm, well, yes, it's the…it's like…the planet spins on an axis…like a line that runs through the middle of it. And the axis is tilted so as Earth rotates around the Sun, half of the year one hemisphere is angled toward the sun and the other is angled away…" This was pointless. Thor was watching her with eyes narrowed in concentration, but it was clear he didn't understand and she knew he was too distracted this time to try to surmount the different language and concepts his people and hers used for such things. "There's a North Pole at one end of the axis, closer to Norway, and I'm headed to the South Pole, at the other end of the axis. It's kind of…beneath here," she said with a grimace. This was by far the worst supposed explanation of the poles and seasons and axial tilt she'd ever heard in her life. But Thor had more important things to do right now than wait for her to come up with a way to truly explain it in terms that would make sense to an Asgardian. Where things "functioned differently."

"You will show it to me later, yes?"

"Really? You'd want to see it?"

"Of course."

"Well…okay," she said with a grin that faded somewhat when she recalled they were talking about the South Pole here, not Hawaii. "Actually…it's not that easy. Well, maybe it is for you. With the flying."

Thor was smiling down at her; she could swear he was holding back laughter. Jane pulled her right hand away from him and drove a light fist into his arm. And it hurt. She stood there shaking her fist out in vain. She was certain that was going to bruise. Her knuckles, not his arm.

"Armor is not worn for decoration, Jane," he said, losing the battle to hold back his laughter. He quickly grew serious again though. "I must leave. Every moment I stay here is a risk for Asgard."

"I understand. Just…one thing, please?"

"Anything. Anything fast," he amended.

"I've never been kissed by a king before," she said with a boldness that surprised her even as the words were coming out of her mouth.

He circled his arms around her waist and easily lifted her to him, bringing their heights to the same level, and crushed his lips to hers.

"And see that I remain the only one," he said, putting her back down on the ground a moment later.

Jane just smiled at him as she tried to catch her breath.

He walked over to the edge of the trees, saw no one, and took a few more steps out into the grassy area between the wooded area and the parking lot. "Heimdall!" he called, his back to her. "I am ready!"

A second later he was gone in a bath of blue light.

/

* * *

/

_Wow._ Jane emerged from the trees, stared at the space where Thor had stood, looked around for anyone who may have noticed him. The only sign of life was a few sheep in the distance. _Wow._ There was so much to take in and it was swirling around inside her too fast to pin down. She just kept thinking, _wow_. She was pretty sure she said it aloud a few times.

"My life has gotten really…really…weird," she said aloud. _Good weird, or bad weird_? she could picture Thor asking her. And this time she was pretty sure she knew the answer.

Suddenly she remembered one of the other weird things in her life and looked at her watch. She ran to the car and opened the door, still unlocked from before, and stared at the space where the steering wheel should have been. She slammed the door and ran around to the other side of the car to better results. If she could shave just a little off the time into Christchurch she would still make it in time.

Devoting her full attention to the winding road and ignoring the views over the water and mountains this time, she made it out to the airport and easily found the giant blue hanger with "United States Antarctic Program" prominently written in white letters on it, along with the round map-of-Antarctica emblem. She parked across the street at her destination, the Clothing Distribution Center, marked by its similar blue and white sign. She glanced at her watch as she turned off the engine. _Two minutes to spare_. She scrambled out of the car and dashed over to the glass doors. About a dozen others were gathered in the front room; her eyes swept the room and found Lucas Cane – or rather the top of his head visible behind a couple of other people. She didn't think he had noticed her entry, so she stayed where she was, on the opposite side of the room.

"Headed to the Ice?" a woman with long braided red hair and numerous escaped curly wisps framing her face asked.

Jane nodded, grinned. "Yeah." _I really, really am_.

"McMurdo or Pole?"

"Pole. And you?"

"McMurdo. Morgan Reed," the red-head said, sticking her hand out.

"Jane Foster." Jane shook the woman's hand.

"First time?"

"Can you tell?"

Morgan laughed. "Only because I think your face might crack from that smile about the same time as mine. It's my first time, too. There's one other person here going to the Pole. The rest of us are stopping at McMurdo."

"Mmm. So what-" Another woman began to speak then – Jane couldn't see her from the back of the group – and Jane was interrupted from her attempt to distract Morgan from what she expected would have quickly turned into a friendly offer to introduce her to Lucas.

After a welcome and briefing from a CDC staffer, the group started to migrate over to the changing room to try on their pre-bagged ECW – extreme cold weather – gear. Madge, the woman who gave the briefing, stopped everyone with an announcement. "Can I see Lucas Cane for a moment?" Everyone else continued onward, except for Jane, who remained frozen, torn between her desire to keep separation between her and Lucas and her curiosity at why he was being singled out.

"Good morning, Dr. Foster," Lucas said as they both converged on Madge through the thinning crowd.

"Good morning, Mr. Cane," Jane said. She was dressed for summer in jeans and a new T-shirt, but he wore an expensive-looking shirt with navy, green, and white stripes topped with a two-button navy blazer with brown slacks she could swear were made of silk. "Business casual" for some Wall Street office; virtually a tuxedo here.

"Jane Foster? Our other winterover Polie?" Madge asked.

"That's right," Jane answered, although those words didn't yet feel like they applied to her. "Pleased to meet you."

"Likewise. Lucas, we don't have a questionnaire from you."

He hesitated a moment. "Questionnaire?"

"Yes, with your expected sizes for the gear? Your institution didn't give it to you? You're here with the same institution as Jane, right? We've got you on the list, but we never got your questionnaire."

"Right. This all happened very quickly. They must have forgotten in the rush."

"Well, never mind. Go talk to Gerald over there at the window," Madge said, twisting and pointing toward an opening in the wall, what looked like a split door with its top half open. "Tell him your sizes and he'll start pulling the things you need from the warehouse."

Lucas nodded and turned to Jane. "I'll catch up with you later."

Jane nodded back to him and headed over to the changing room.

Lucas watched her leave before going to find Gerald. The shopping trip at Queen Victoria Building was a fortuitous stroke of luck; without that experience he wouldn't have any idea about Midgardian clothing sizes.

In the changing room everyone else was opening up big orange bags and pulling out items to try on. Jane scanned the floor for unclaimed bags, but Morgan had spotted her and was waving her over.

"I found yours," she said, pointing to the two orange bags on her left. "Check these out. Have you ever worn these before?"

Jane laughed. "Nope. I can't say that I have." Morgan was holding up the kind of puffy-looking white – or formerly white – rubber insulated "bunny boots."

Jane and Morgan went through their bags together and slowly but surely added layers over their own clothing, checking the fit and testing the zippers, stopping occasionally to laugh and take pictures. Finally, with long underwear, a black sweater, insulated black Carhartt coveralls, gray wool socks, bunny boots, a black neck gaiter, nose and mouth mask, black balaclava, glove liners and heavy dark green gloves, the insulated "Big Red" hooded jacket, and, last, goggles over her eyes, not one bit of skin was exposed. Feeling like she'd just doubled her weight, Jane experimented with walking, bending, and stretching. She got down on her knees and Morgan had to help her get up. Morgan called over someone she'd met earlier to take a couple of pictures of her and Jane together and they tried out Hardy Mountaineer, Antarctic Hitchhiker, and South Pole _Charlie's Angels_ poses.

Just as she was starting to feel light-headed and drown in her own sweat, Jane started yanking off the layers. She hoped that with practice she could get it all on and off more quickly than she was able to now. The sleeves on Big Red were long for her and in general the jacket was too large, so she went over to the window Lucas had been sent to in hopes of exchanging it for a size smaller. He passed her on the way, smiling at her but saying nothing.

Loki set his orange bags down on one of the blue benches that lined the walls and began pulling out articles of clothing that he saw others around him taking off. He caught himself staring at them in amazement and forced himself to focus on the contents of his own bag. He pulled on item after item. The saleswoman at Queen Victoria Building would not approve of this attire, and neither did he. Asgardian attire was complex and layered, but Loki had never worn so much clothing in his life, not all at the same time. He'd gotten the sense that this clothing did not have to be worn all the time, but he wasn't certain. He wondered just how susceptible these humans were to cold. He felt like he could lie down on a block of Jotun ice for a year straight and never even get a chill.

He looked at himself in the mirror, only his eyes visible through the goggles and everything else hidden from view. At least he didn't have to be concerned about anyone recognizing him like this. Over his shoulder in the reflection he saw Jane was repacking her clothing. He turned and approached her.

"How do I look?" he asked.

Tucking in the caps and extra mittens and gloves and liners and hats she'd picked up along with the smaller jacket, Jane glanced up at him quickly. "Pretty much like everybody else here," she said.

"I suppose so," he agreed. _Appearances can deceive_, he thought. They had no idea they were letting a monster into their midst, and dressing it up to look just like them.

/

* * *

/

Loki wandered Christchurch's Central Business District, bored with the obligatory wait for his next conversation with Jane. He had two cards left to play and was confident one if not both would be successful. Of course, he'd been confident in his original plan, too, less so in his second try. If plan three and plan four failed, he would be forced to get truly creative. But for now, there was nothing left to analyze or figure out. There was only the wait.

Around him were broken buildings, empty lots, buildings under construction, and the occasional odd structure that apparently had escaped all damage from the earthquakes the city had suffered. And yet the area was far from dead and abandoned. People still strolled the streets and laughed, a few cafes here and there were open, and on one street a whole series of crude temporary structures had opened as a kind of outdoor bazaar.

With Canadian-turned-Australian-turned-New Zealand dollars Loki purchased a copy of the local newspaper, _The Press_, and a cup of tea, then took a seat in a plastic chair at a plastic table at the shopping bazaar. He leaned forward and shrugged out of his blazer and swung it over the back of his chair, took a sip of the tea, and unfolded the newspaper. Narrowing his eyes, he looked more closely at what appeared to be the front page, then flipped it over and scanned the other side, then back to what was indeed the front again. The lead story was about sheep being mauled by a dog. Then there were stories about the trial of a bank robber, a missing child, and the city's reconstruction. He read each article quickly, with little interest, until he turned to the world news section.

His eyebrows shot up and a bemused smile settled on his lips. A grainy black-and-white image of himself radiating confidence and power stared out at a kneeling crowd of terrified men and women. He remembered every detail of that moment. The intoxication of it. How he'd cowed them into obedience with a few acts of unexpected violence, a few simple illusions, a few words of truth once he had their attention. He'd sought out the faces of those whose body language indicated they were wavering between obedience and defiance and helped them make their decision with a moment of eye contact. Only one had crossed that line, and it would have remained at only one if he'd had the chance to make an example of that foolish man.

He'd known that moment could not last; it was never intended to. But he'd relished it while it had.

The article was not about Stuttgart at all, but about progress in dealing with the damage to Manhattan following the battle there. Apparently there were no good images of him from New York, not publically available ones, anyway. If this was the best they had – this low-quality image of him in his Asgardian attire and his helmet obscuring so much of his face and hair – it was little wonder no one had shown any sign of recognizing him. No one but Jane, who had clearly had access to recordings made by SHIELD. That bit of information made the whole afternoon worthwhile. He relaxed into his chair, felt a bit of the tension dissolve, tension that had been with him ever since lights first approached him on a lonely northern Saskatchewan road.

He narrowed his eyes again and turned back to the front of the paper. Some three weeks ago he'd nearly conquered New York, an opening act to claiming the entire realm. This city, too, would have fallen to him, or else faced devastation surpassing any earthquake, and yet he was a tiny picture in the middle of the newspaper. The front page was occupied by sheep.

/

* * *

/

After leaving the CDC, Jane grabbed a sandwich from a convenience store, returned her rental car, and accepted a ride from the rental company to the Christchurch Botanic Gardens. She had to be back to the little terminal next to the CDC at 5 AM for the flight to McMurdo, so she'd decided to have a restful, relaxing day, taking a leisurely stroll through the gardens with some considerable bench time as well. Now February 7th, it would be her last chance to spend time out among trees until sometime in November.

She also needed the downtime to be able to think.

Thor had brought a lot of heady news on his latest visit and she hadn't had time to process any of it. She'd tried, a couple of times, during the drive from Akaroa back to Christchurch, but had found it too distracting at a time when she really needed to focus on the road.

It was easier here. Unlike in Sydney, she didn't bother with trying to learn about everything she was seeing; she simply strolled around and enjoyed the flowering gardens, crossing the little Avon River at one bridge and back again at the next, then wandering into the central part of the gardens, admiring the beauty and serenity around her.

She walked under an arched trellis covered with pink roses and found herself in the rose garden; the hotel receptionist had told her it had over 250 varieties of roses. Jane found a bench and sat down, breathing in the nearly overpowering scent. Her mother had kept about a dozen varieties of roses; Jane had thought they were pretty but was put off by the thorns, not to mention her other interests demanding her attention. Another thing she wished she could do over. Her mother would have loved it here.

Jane shook her head and gave a small laugh. She wondered what her parents would have thought about her life now. They'd expected academic success from her – not because they were pushing her on a particular path for her life, but because she had always wanted it herself. Her dad was a professor, and she'd always assumed she would be, too. It hadn't worked out that way. She liked to think that they would be proud of her for her pertinacity in the face of the establishment's rejection, but sometimes, in a darker and sadder part of her she rarely allowed anyone to see, she wondered if they would be disappointed that her doctorate had gotten her no further than living in a trailer and – for all the academic world thought – tilting at windmills.

And what would they think of Thor? Well, Erik had come to like him, but really, that was just too hard to wrap her head around. Her parents came from a pre-Thor world that was hard to reconcile with the post-Thor world.

She took a deep breath. She was dating a king. Sort of. An acting king. And they hadn't really gone on a date, unless you counted that night in Tromso. _It counts_, she decided. What was a date if not cheesecake and coffee and romantic moments on a rooftop watching an aurora? So what if it wasn't penciled in on the calendar? Thor didn't seem to really do calendars.

She wished she could see what Thor's life in Asgard was like; maybe it would help bridge the gap she now felt between them. After looking at Erik's library book she'd figured Thor to be a prince, and he'd confirmed it in Tromso. But she'd met him as "just Thor"; he'd never referred to himself as a prince or his father as a king. He acted like kind of a jerk at first, and in retrospect she could imagine him as a prince used to a silver spoon. And there was something…something _regal_ in his bearing.

But a _king_. That was something else altogether. It shouldn't seem like such a big difference, but somehow, to her, it did. And that _helmet_. He looked less like a man and more like that mythological legend with it on. Even his kiss had been different. Less gentle…more urgent. Maybe because he was in a hurry. Or because it was their third kiss. Maybe that's what it was like to be kissed by a king who was facing the outbreak of war.

She could imagine Thor fighting. She had seen it with her own eyes, and later on television. She couldn't picture him leading some kind of interplanetary war in Asgard though. She didn't even know what Frost Giants looked like, other than that they were quite likely larger than your average Midgardian or Asgardian. Or Svart…Svartalfheimians? Svartalfians? She didn't know what they looked like either, or anything about them at all. In many ways she felt she knew Thor really well, well enough to be comfortable telling him just about anything. But there was so much she didn't know. A thousand years' worth of things. She would live some 70 more years, maybe. He would live…700 more? 7,000? He hadn't really answered her question about how long his people lived; had he been avoiding it?

If they lived for thousands of years, how long did they go to war for? Could Thor be leading a war against Jotunheim and Svartalfheim for the rest of her life?

She jumped back to that kiss that took her breath away. _See that I remain the only one_. Was he just being funny, teasing her? Or did he mean something more serious by that? The kiss certainly hadn't felt like she was being teased. She hadn't seen anyone else or been interested in seeing anyone else since meeting Thor. But then, it wasn't like she was a hit on the date circuit anyway. Strange how many men lost interest when they heard words like "astrophysicist" and "doctorate," and how many more followed suit when they found out she actually liked talking about her work. She hadn't seen anybody since Don, one of the few who hadn't been intimidated by her degree (probably because he thought his own "outranked" hers), and that was over a year ago.

She could seriously drive herself nuts with these questions, and there was no point because there was no way to get any answers to them. You don't go bugging a king who's preparing for a possible war with questions about your relationship.

Her thoughts drifted back to the Earth-bound part of her life. To how much time and energy she'd spent worrying about Lucas Cane. That particular problem seemed insignificant compared to what Thor was having to deal with, and her anger seemed petty. She of all people should know life was too short to spend it getting upset over things she couldn't change. She couldn't help laughing then; maybe if she had Thor's lifespan she would come to a different conclusion. Then another laugh. Actually, this could work very well. She could try to make that proverbial lemonade out of this situation. When it hit -100 Fahrenheit and she needed to check on her equipment she could send her trusty assistant out to do it for her. It wasn't like anything she was doing was secret, anyway, not from SHIELD. They were sponsoring her for this trip, through a research institution Tony Stark had set up; she would be keeping a journal of her work and writing up all of the results for them when it was over. It was just the principle of the thing. A principle she happened to feel exceptionally strongly about.

She would try to be more civil. To not get so worked up about it. She would try.

Jane got up and started wandering the gardens again, letting her imagination run amok about Frost Giants AKA Jotuns and Svartalf-whatevers. After a while she found a place in the downtown area to pick up a couple of containers of long-lasting milk and a couple of bottles of nice red wine for sometime down the line, the pair of flip flops that Morgan had recommended, and the extra chapstick someone else at the CDC had recommended. She got a nice dinner at a newly opened Thai restaurant on Victoria Street – her last actual restaurant meal for a very long time – savored it as long as she reasonably could, then got a taxi back to her hotel room to do a final arranging and packing of her suitcases for the early start. As she was getting ready for bed, she glanced around the room, regretting that she'd forgotten to ask what "hobs" were; the hotel had advertised having them but she had never noticed anything that looked particularly "hob"-like in the room. She smiled and turned out the light. She would ask in November.

* * *

/

_So did anyone guess where Jane was going? They really *do* conduct astrophysics research at the South Pole, BTW._

_I do hope you enjoyed the chapter and would appreciate hearing from you in a review, it's such an energizer to hear your thoughts. (Estonians, I'm also talking to you! Very unexpectedly for me, in August Estonians are the most common nationality to be reading this story, after the US. That's awesome! I love that this website is a worldwide thing.)_

_Teasers for "Chapter 10: Ice": Jane gets invited on a hike again; Loki's still annoyed about those sheep; and, oh, yes, TABLES TURN._

_Excerpt: _

[Loki] didn't actually care why any of these people looked or behaved the way they did. There was only one person on this flight who held the slightest interest for him. Indeed, there was only one person in this entire realm who held any real interest for him now. She was seated near the front of the plane, facing forward, her small body entirely hidden by her seat. He had arrived here so distant from her, had circled this globe in one direction while she circled it in the other, until their paths met, joined, intertwined. Perhaps they were not intertwined just yet, he admitted to himself, but they would be. Of that he had no doubt.


	11. (10) Ice

_Apologies for the unexpected delay in this one. (It was really more due to delays in the next one which is now complete!)_

_Thank you for the reviews! Forgive the quick diversion here for me to thank "A Nonny Mouse" since I couldn't reply by PM - I'm sincerely happy for your stamp of approval on Australia & NZ as I'm guessing you're from one or the other. Australia was based on tourist experience but NZ solely on research (hopefully someday I will add experience, it is so beautiful there!). The day I looked up Christchurch's newspaper online the lead story was indeed about a dog mauling sheep._

_Many sincere thanks to reader & reviewer Timid Timbuktu who has actually been to McMurdo and kindly agreed to look at advance copies of this chapter and the next to help keep me accurate and the places Loki and Jane go feel real.  
_

_In this chapter, Jane and "Lucas" reach their next-to-final destination and as I have kept teasing, tables indeed turn. I hope you're looking forward to it as much as Loki is...and he's _really_ looking forward to it._**  
**

/

* * *

**Beneath**

Chapter Ten – Ice

_To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield._

_-Alfred Lord Tennyson_

* * *

Bags weighed and checked except for one of the big orange bags and a carry-on "boomerang bag" – with a change of clothes and a few other things she'd need if the plane had to turn back due to weather – Jane sat in the waiting area at the passenger terminal next to Morgan Reed. She wore her black Carhartt overalls over one of her favorite old flannels, while Big Red was slung over the back of her chair. Long underwear had been recommended, but Jane couldn't bring herself to put in on. It was _summer _here. She hoped she wouldn't regret the decision when she stepped off the plane at McMurdo, where summer was defined a bit differently.

They were a motley group, Jane thought, looking around her. Some, like Morgan and the man to Morgan's right, were in animated conversation, but many, like the man to Jane's left, had made themselves an island of isolation and oblivion to the outside world, heads down over books, lost in unknown music piped in through wires from hidden Mp3 players. Enough bunny-booted feet to overpopulate a warren were visible along the floor, broken by the occasional dark blue or black boot that a few had somehow wound up with. Some looked like they were still in their teens. A man sitting behind her and to the right looked to be in his sixties and sported a scraggly beard more salt than pepper; he looked like a mountain man version of Dr. Eichmann, her very first astronomy professor. Everyone had Big Red, though. And everyone was going to the ice.

"Did you have fun on your last night in Cheech?" Morgan asked, turning to Jane.

"Yeah. Low-key. I walked around the Botanic Gardens, got some dinner, did a little shopping. You?"

"Cody and I went to the beach," she said, pointing to the man next to her. She had introduced them earlier.

"Nice!"

"Hey, did you ever meet the other Polie?"

"Yeah, I met him," Jane said, keeping her voice even. Lucas was somewhere behind her.

"We should all do something together when we get there. Cody said there's this hill, Observation Hill-"

"Ob Hill," Cody threw in, leaning over.

"Ob Hill, 750 feet high, steep but pretty easy climb with great views. Wanna go?"

Jane's eyebrows went up. "Sure, that sounds great." She hadn't expected to have a chance to do any hiking in Antarctica.

"You should ask…what's his name?"

"Lucas. But I don't think he'd want to go."

"He does seem like one of the loners. He doesn't talk much."

Jane nodded, fighting the urge to turn around and look for Lucas. Eye contact could be construed as an invitation.

/

* * *

/

Loki sat with a book resting on his lap, grateful that he could avoid all interaction with the insignificant and bothersome creatures around him while still entirely blending in with them. He did not belong here; every particle of his being screamed a continual reminder of this fact. He felt heat emanating from the men sitting entirely too closely to either side of him – no one save his immediate family dared come so close to him on Asgard. He was continually conscious of the roughness and lingering stench of the clothes he was required to wear, clothes that had been worn by who knew how many others before him. The couch he'd wound up in the middle of was worn, fragile, too short, uncomfortable like almost every seat he'd sat on in Midgard. He suspected if Thor sat on it with his armor it would split under his weight.

He longed for the familiar comforts of home. For people who knew how to show proper respect. For supple, soft materials that molded to his body, protected and warmed without stifling, and were stitched together by skilled hands for him and him alone, such that the very clothing he wore proclaimed his identity to all who beheld him. For space and scale and something as basic as a chair befitting his stature.

The home he longed for, however, was not his to inhabit. It was a home that no longer even existed for him, a home that had ceased to be his the day he'd reluctantly followed Thor to Jotunheim, a home that had never truly been his to begin with. And in the end, all these symbols of who he was had been unceremoniously stripped from him. The clothing and finery that announced him as a prince of Asgard. The space and scale and comforts. The respect. The people of Asgard had certainly kept their distance upon his return…but in those few moments they had seen him, they looked at him with pity, or scorn, or derision, or horrified curiosity, or whatever else had taken the place of respect and fear. The weight of their gazes as they looked down at him instead of up had been heavy as he was led to his cell.

There had to be a way to change all that. There was _always_ a way. He looked up briefly at Jane, dressed identically to him and almost everyone else here, but easily identifiable by her small frame and the long brown hair hanging loosely down her back.

His one consolation in this squalor lay in his conviction that in Midgard he sacrificed these things by choice. If he merely willed it, he could transform anything and everything in this dingy room. He could command respect and fear with a well-aimed toss of a knife or a clever illusion. These things were child's play. Enjoyable, but ultimately not at all useful, and certainly not worth the price he risked paying – not at this time and place, anyway.

He forced himself to concentrate on the words of the book he'd purchased in Christchurch, _Understanding the Physics of the Universe_. Tedious as it was to read about such elementary concepts, mastering the terminology the mortals used to discuss those concepts could prove _extremely_ useful.

He did not belong here, he reminded himself yet again, but he needed the mortals around him to believe that he did. He spared a quick glance up at the New Zealand Air Force staff standing at the entry to the hangar's waiting room, his first direct encounter with any of this realm's many competing and warring militaries. They had examined his documents and let him pass. He had smiled through tightly pressed lips once past them, reminding himself that here they were more concerned about dogs attacking their sheep than about a supposed Asgardian intent on uniting them under his rule by whatever means necessary.

/

* * *

/

Having secured his own version of a boomerang bag underneath his seat, Loki dropped into the seat that was part of a row lining the C-17's hull, oddly facing into the center of the aircraft and stacks of cargo instead of forward with no cargo in sight like the other planes he'd been on. He placed the heavy red jacket in the seat next to him to discourage anyone from occupying it. This five-hour flight would test even _his_ patience, he knew. He felt it keenly, viscerally, even physically.

Anticipation.

It danced over his flesh and through his mind, a crackling energy that began when he boarded the plane and made his whole body tingle. Though his face revealed nothing but a studied indifference, those few who knew him well would have detected something incongruous in the slightly increased rate of breathing, the subtle brightness in his eyes, or perhaps the raised heart rate had they placed a hand over his wrist. Known for his composure and calm, particularly in contrast with brash, impetuous, quick-tempered Thor, Loki recognized this inability to completely control his reaction as a kind of volatility that was new to him – or perhaps it had always been there in some measure and he had only newly recognized it.

There was no good reason for this strong reaction, this relative lack of control. Not to such a small thing, simply a new gambit to try where others had failed. But there had been so much waiting, so much wandering, so much sitting and doing nothing, unable even to plan adequately because there remained too many unknowns. The promise – or at least the logical hope – of a step forward at last was what electrified his nerves and tugged at the built-up energy inside him. That he had restrained this energy – his very nature – for so long now was a rather remarkable demonstration of self-control, actually. Perhaps that _was_ a sufficient reason for his reaction then, after all. But it made it no less unacceptable.

So now, as the time and place approached, it was time to review and push further the planning he'd begun in Christchurch. He would remain Lucas but project his inverse. He would transform himself from obsequious to assertive. From deferential to disdainful. From pursuer to pursued. From beneath to above.

He began to work through every possible permutation of their interaction that he could conceive of. If she grew belligerent, how should he respond? If she reached out a metaphorical hand to smooth over his sudden roughness, should he accept it, immediately parry it, or not accept it at all? And what if it were a physical hand she extended, would he let her touch him? What if she were indifferent to him – would that be a failure, or would further provocation salvage it? What if despite his efforts to isolate her, one of her newfound friends interrupted them – how could that be twisted to his advantage?

As he sank deeper into the weighing and sifting of variables, the anticipation cooled and settled into its appropriate dimensions. In the tiny part of his mind that he tasked with remaining cognizant of his surroundings he registered the aircraft's movement and the smattering of applause from a few particularly childish passengers when its wheels left the ground.

No one seemed bothered by the expression of detached boredom on his face – in the last three days he'd been on five commercial flights and hadn't felt the urge to clap even once – and a few of the others seemed equally disconnected from their surroundings. Perhaps they were also on their fifth flight, he thought.

But he didn't actually care why any of these people looked or behaved the way they did. There was only one person on this flight who held the slightest interest for him. Indeed, there was only one person in this entire realm who held any real interest for him now. She was seated near the front of the plane, facing forward, her small body entirely hidden by her seat. He had arrived here so distant from her, had circled this globe in one direction while she circled it in the other, until their paths met, joined, intertwined. Perhaps they were not intertwined just yet, he admitted to himself, but they would be. Of that he had no doubt.

/

* * *

/

Five hours was a long time for a loud flight filled with anticipation and nearly lacking windows. Jane got up and stretched her legs from time to time, peered out one of the few small windows behind her, ate most of the bagged lunch she'd been given before they left Christchurch, and took advantage of the opportunity to go up to the cockpit, chat with the pilots, and take a few pictures out the much bigger windows there. She allowed herself a glance back at Lucas just once; he had appeared to be sleeping.

The weather held, and at last someone from the cockpit announced they were landing. Jane knew the runway was made of ice. And even though she also knew that this was _normal_, and that these C-17s and their US Air Force pilots landed on the ice all the time, she couldn't help clenching her fists while she waited for and willed the plane to come to a safe, complete stop. Scattered applause broke out, Morgan and Cody part of that chorus as Jane gratefully uncurled her fingers. The same distorted voice from the cockpit announced it was a sunny 25 degrees Fahrenheit outside.

Jane exchanged her earplugs for sunglasses – the good ones, not the "I love Australia" ones – and pulled on Big Red.

Outside it was windy, and she pulled her black wool hat out of her pocket and tugged it on tightly over her head. In a few minutes everyone was climbing on board an enormous red and white bus with "Ivan the Terra Bus" painted in white letters on its side and wheels that were almost as tall as Jane. Ivan lumbered away from the ice runway and toward the little town that made up McMurdo station – "Mactown" as Antarctic returnee Cody had informed her – looking kind of like an old dirty mining town surrounded by rocks and snow and ice.

What came next was less an adventure than a long exercise in bureaucracy. Briefing after briefing on rules and regulations, safety, recycling, health, some of which she'd already heard in Christchurch, and much of which seemed overkill considering she didn't expect to be here more than 24 hours. Morgan was trying to take it all in just as conscientiously as Jane, but Cody was looking down under lowered eyelids at his camera, where he was thumbing through pictures.

Then there were the tasks. Planning for departing Antarctica when she hadn't even made it to the Pole yet. Getting a room assignment and a key. Filling in paperwork. Dropping off her boomerang bag and orange bag in the large dorm room she'd been assigned in big blue Building 155, home to the station's galley. Grabbing sheets from the laundry room, taking them back to the dorm room with its six beds and only one of them seemingly claimed, and making a bed. Claiming her bags once they were hauled off the plane. Getting internet access set up. After dinner more tasks remained – repeating the "bag-drag" ritual of hauling her bags back out of her room for weighing and checking them in for the next day's flight and reporting to the South Pole travel briefing.

Finally she made her way to the galley from her dorm room at the other end of the building and got an apple and a bottle of water, stuffing them in the backpack she'd removed from her boomerang bag. While she waited for Morgan and Cody to arrive she sat down at a round table for four in a large room that strongly reminded her of the main cafeteria at her college.

"May I join you?" a familiar, polite voice said from behind her.

She hesitated too long for what should normally be an automatic response. "Sure. But I'm not staying long."

He stepped around her and took the seat across from her. He unscrewed the cap on his water bottle and took a tiny sip. Jane noticed that his lips only barely touched the bottle. She averted her eyes.

"Headed out for some exploring?"

Jane nodded, made herself smile with as much friendliness as she could muster.

"So am I," Lucas said. "I would ask if you wanted to join me, but I assume you still prefer to enjoy your solitude."

"Oh…" Jane found herself looking at the ceiling, the walls, the other tables, the handful of other people in the galley at this time of the afternoon, anywhere but the steady gaze of his bright green eyes. "Well, I was actually going to go on a short hike with a couple of other people I met." She searched for some way to draw out her response while she tried to decide whether she should stick with her resolution to be nicer and invite him along, but her brain was not cooperating. _They call that "guilt," Jane_, she thought.

His posture grew more rigid. "Dr. Foster…have I said something inappropriate to you? If I have, I apologize. It certainly was not my intention."

"No, it's not-"

"Then what's going on? Clearly it's not that you want to be alone, you just don't want to be around _me_. What do you have against me, Dr. Foster?" Lucas asked, pressing his lips into a thin line. Just a hint of anger was plainly visible in what was otherwise an expressionless face.

Before Jane could come up with a response Morgan appeared at the edge of the galley, waving at her as she walked over. "Ready, Jane? Hi, I'm Morgan," she said, offering a hand and a smile to Lucas.

"Nice to meet you, Morgan," Lucas said without looking up, without acknowledging the hand. "Do you mind if we have a minute alone?"

"Oh, uh, sure," Morgan said, glancing uncertainly at Jane.

"Sorry, Morgan. I, uh, I'll meet you in a few minutes. Up by the entrance?"

"Okay," she said with a slightly more confident nod.

When she was out of hearing range Jane stood and turned to look down at Lucas. He quickly stood and she found herself craning her neck upward. "Look, it's nothing personal, okay? It's nothing to do with you."

"You're lying," he said matter-of-factly.

"What? I'm- I'm not-"

"Yes, you are. And I've done nothing to deserve that from you. I've been friendly and respectful toward you since we first met and you've treated me like…like some unwanted tag-along. You've been unfair and frankly unkind. And you've made the thought of the next nine months seem like an insufferable burden," he said, his voice growing deeper and angrier as he spoke.

"You? _I've_ made…?" Jane sputtered in a raised voice, glancing around to check whether anyone had noticed; it seemed no one had, not so far, anyway. She grabbed onto his arm to tug him out of the galley and found she couldn't budge him in the slightest. She glanced up at him; he looked surprised, and not as strong as he apparently was.

"We need to talk in private," she said, and this time when she pulled on his arm he relented and let her lead him out of the galley and down the long corridor to the far end of the building, into the dorm area, and into the activity room. It was mercifully empty; Jane hadn't wanted to drag him into her own dorm room. "Let me get this straight," she said as soon as the door was closed behind them. "You think this is going to be hard on _you_? I'm not blind, you know. I know exactly who you are and exactly what you're here for. You think _you've_ been treated unfairly? You're not the one with your own personal minder, spying on everything you do and reporting it back to SHIELD. This is my _one chance_ to get away from…from all this _craziness_ that's been in my life lately and find some kind of normalcy and peace and focus with _nobody_ looking over my shoulder. And then you show up, postage paid by SHIELD. So if spying on me is going to be such an _insufferable burden_ to you then I suggest you do us both a favor and accidentally miss the flight tomorrow, okay?"

/

* * *

/

Loki allowed his genuine confusion to show on his face. But while Lucas's confusion lingered, Loki's was gone in little more than a heartbeat. He had never imagined his original plan for gaining her acceptance could so horribly backfire. More pieces of the puzzle that was Jane Foster fell into place. "Is _that_ what you think?" he asked. "That I'm here to report on you to SHIELD?"

"Yes, that's exactly what I think," she said. Her unclouded expression, straight spine, and slightly extended neck spoke to her anger and to the strength of her conviction. Rarely had anyone stood up to him so boldly, and perhaps never someone so ultimately powerless.

"You couldn't be further from the truth." And really she couldn't.

"Is that so? Why else would they get some random graduate student out here like that, with one week's notice? People don't have their own personal assistants out there, not over the winter. There aren't even that many scientists there in the winter in the first place. And you can't get all those medical tests done in a week; they had to have paid a fortune and moved mountains to make all that happen. I know because they paid a fortune and moved mountains to get _me_ in the door and I had _two_ weeks. So why go to all that trouble? Because they decided somebody had to keep an eye on me, just like they always have."

Loki took a couple of steadying breaths, letting anger plainly show now. "Excuse me, _Doctor_ Foster, I don't mean to be obnoxious but I don't consider myself 'random.' I'm not a political science student, I actually study _real_ science. Real physics and real astronomy. Like you I've refused to look at science as a popularity contest and dared to pursue alternative theories. And like you I've paid a price for it. I'm familiar if just barely with your work; I've read your dissertation. You haven't been able to publish much else, have you? I think I was a logical choice for your assistant, and I was excited at the opportunity. At the time, at least." He'd skimmed her dissertation anyway. It was long and full of technical terminology and theoretical concepts that differed significantly from the Asgardian understanding of matter and energy. With sufficient time he could have married all of her terms and concepts to his and deciphered it, but sufficient time had not yet been available.

"As for the medical tests," he continued. "I don't know how they accomplished all that. They just told me where to go for the appointments and I went. Look, I suppose I have no way of convincing you I'm not here for some nefarious purpose. I had hoped to learn from you, yes, but I am no one's lackey. Not SHIELD's, and not yours either. You seem to be under the mistaken impression that this world revolves around you. I'm not here for you; I'm here for my own purposes. For what this opportunity could mean for my own future. And there's no way I'm going to let you take that from me."

Loki paused, reigned himself in. He was letting too much anger through now – his own anger, which dwarfed what Lucas needed to express. He had taken two steps toward her and made her acutely aware of the difference in their sizes, and she had taken a step back and bumped into a large table covered with green felt. He wanted to shift the balance of power between them, not send her scampering away in fear. Not now.

Calmer now, he resumed, noting Jane's widened eyes and failed attempt to speak. "I'm not going to _accidentally_ miss the flight to make you feel better. It's too late for that. But I'll find…_something_ else to work on out there, some other project, and gladly stay as far away from you as I can. I would simply ask that you do me the small favor of telling whomever asks that I am a good and diligent assistant, so that your self-obsessed paranoia doesn't end up reflecting badly on me." He abruptly turned and left the room.

He kept his pace slow and his stride short as he made his way out of the dorm area and back down the corridor toward the galley. And then he heard it: the satisfying sound of success.

/

* * *

/

Jane stared at the open door. She licked lips that had gone dry while her mouth had dropped open. Could she really have misjudged him, and his sudden appearance, that badly? Had SHIELD and their secrecy and their need to know and control everything so warped her that she would make false assumptions about complete strangers? Had they made her so suspicious – so paranoid – that she had convicted on presumption? There had been so many little things, though. How he just happened to find her in Australia's biggest metropolis. How he seemed to know things about her. How he appeared everywhere she went. How he'd brought up her family in what appeared to be little more than an effort to get some kind of rise out of her. Could all those things have been no more than coincidence that she had spun into an irrational narrative born purely of her imagination?

If he were telling the truth…

She darted out of the office and into the corridor, just in time to see him turn into the cafeteria.

Ignoring the stares from a group of young men she raced past, she rounded the corner and called his name. His first one.

He turned, eyebrows raised slightly in surprise. A few other heads turned – people were already showing up for dinner – but their gazes didn't appear to linger.

She caught up to him, stopping very close, again conscious of how he towered over her but less intimidated now that they were in a public place. She glanced around them, then spoke in a quiet, low voice. "So…SHIELD didn't send you here to spy on me?"

He frowned. He was clearly annoyed, but his anger had already mingled with what looked like resignation earlier, and now it seemed to have faded entirely. "I already told you that's not why I'm here."

"And they didn't…show you a file on me?"

"A file?" he asked, confusion knitting his brow. "They told me a little about your research. There was no file."

Jane gave a little huff and looked down, then to her left. _Grow up. This part is what's called being a grown-up,_ she scolded herself. She looked back up at him. He looked down at her impassively, perhaps a bit impatiently. "I'm sorry. Really. It's just…everything I've done ever since…they've been watching me. And I've never really trusted them. Even the ones I'd call friends, it's…I don't know. It's complicated. But none of that's your fault. I'm truly sorry that I made assumptions about you like that. You're catching me at kind of a bad time, I guess. My life is really-" Jane cut herself off by biting down on her tongue, literally. Making excuses wouldn't help anything. She closed her eyes briefly, took a quick breath.

"I'm sorry. I'm rambling. I just wanted to apologize. And to try to start over. Jane Foster. Call me Jane. Nobody calls me Dr. Foster." She held out her hand to him with a tentative smile.

He looked down at the hand as though he would really rather not touch it, and Jane wondered if she had messed this up so badly it could never really be fixed. But he seemed to relax, a little, his shoulders dropping a bit from their rigid squared-back position. And then he took her hand, gently, politely. Not really a proper handshake at all, as if he weren't used to shaking hands with women. She didn't recall noticing this the first time she'd shaken his hand, in Sydney, when she'd been dismayed and filled with dread.

"A pleasure to meet you…Jane."

"Good," she said with a relieved smile. "I mean, good that we can start over. I'm really not half as awful as I must have seemed. And now I guess we have a lot to talk about…but…"

"But your friends are waiting for you."

"Right," she said sheepishly. "Oh, but you know, why don't you come with us? We're just going out for a short hike. There's a hill nearby that's supposed to have nice views."

"Thank you, but no. I'm going to get dinner, go to that briefing and take care of my bags, then go to bed early. Enjoy your hike, though. I'll see you tomorrow." He nodded his head to her and resumed his walk toward the growing galley line.

Jane pursed her lips and sighed. "See you tomorrow," she called after him weakly. Maybe he was telling the truth, but she suspected she'd pushed him so far with her rude behavior that he wasn't quite ready to let bygones be bygones. And she couldn't blame him. At least they'd cleared the air. At least she'd managed what she hoped was a decent apology.

"Jane?"

She whirled around. Morgan was standing behind her.

"We were starting to wonder if we should give up and go without you. Is everything okay?" she asked, lifting her head toward Lucas's receding figure.

"Yeah. We just kind of got off on a bad foot. I think it'll be okay now. But hey, I'm so sorry to have held you up. Let's go!" she urged, corralling some of her earlier enthusiasm and pushing the lingering tension with Lucas from her mind.

"He seems kind of…intense," Morgan said as they approached the building's entrance, where Cody was leaning against the wall just inside the door.

Jane shrugged. "I guess so," she said absently. She wasn't really sure how he "seemed" anymore. She'd been so busy building him into something he apparently wasn't she realized she really _would_ be starting over with him.

"There's snow on the hill," Cody said, bending down to the floor and picking up something made of metal. "You're going to want these."

_Cleats_, Jane realized. She took them with a nod and a grin.

In about an hour the three had summitted Ob Hill – it was less than a mile away – and stood at the top panting. Jane, at least, was panting, and casting the occasional glance toward Morgan and Cody to see if they were as winded as she was. She had been putting in some gym time at the SHIELD facility in Tromso to build stamina, but only for about a week and a half, and she hadn't been climbing straight up the steep side of a snowy, rocky 750-foot big-hill-slash-little-mountain in Antarctica during that time. She took in the spectacular views; she was bundled up in more of her gear now than when they'd started, but let the sharp wind burn her uncovered face so as not to obstruct her vision.

Cody kept up his tour guide role and told them about all the things they saw as Jane snapped pictures on her phone – on the summit the wooden cross memorial to Robert Scott and his party who'd died on their way back from the South Pole in 1912, the active volcano Mt. Erebus that still sometimes emitted puffs of smoke, New Zealand's Scott Base, Mactown itself of course, Mt. Discovery, Discovery Hut that Scott built in 1902 and in which some of his team's supplies remained, the Pegasus ice field their plane had landed on earlier that day, and lots and lots of Antarctica and water and chunks of sea ice, one of which supported five Weddell seals. The skies were clear and visibility was excellent.

When her breathing returned to normal and Cody was expounding on the merits of Scott Base's gift shop over McMurdo's, Jane, who wouldn't be visiting New Zealand's Scott Base, drifted back over to the wooden cross and looked up at it. She put it at around eleven feet tall; her head didn't even come close to the horizontal beam, at least where she was standing. If she perched carefully on some snow-free rocks and peered closely she could get higher and make out most of what was carved into it. It listed the names of the explorers who'd perished and explained that they'd died in March 1912 on their way back from the Pole. And underneath that was the line from a poem Cody had said was by Tennyson.

_To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield._

Jane had never been particularly interested in literature – least of all poetry – and in college had taken no more of it than what was required; the name _Tennyson_ was only vaguely familiar to her. She read the quote again.

_To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield._

She found herself nodding. She didn't put herself in the same league as Robert Scott – she'd risked her reputation and career while he'd risked, and lost, his life – but this concise yet profound string of infinitives told her story as well. They were words to remember when days were long and filled with adversity and it felt like the whole world was squaring off against you.

"Hey, Jane!" Cody called, pulling her out of her reverie. "Show me those pipes!"

She looked at him with confusion.

"Time for hero shots!" Morgan shouted, putting her arms up to demonstrate some kind of cross between a victory-V and a body builder's pose – it was hard to tell underneath a sweater, a zipped-up Big Red, and gloved hands.

Cody had one hand bared and gripping his camera.

Jane grinned, showed her non-existent pipes with her raised left arm, and with her right she pointed Vanna-White-style at the Tennyson quote.

/

* * *

/

Loki perused the offerings of McMurdo's galley with feigned interest. He eyed the stack of red apples, picked one up, found that under light pressure it bruised and gave way. They were not particularly fresh, which would make them even more intolerable than the average apple in this realm. He didn't know how the mortals could willingly consume them. Asgardian apples were sweet and rich and firm and some were even magical.

His mouth watered.

He took a deep breath and pushed away irrelevant memories.

He swept his gaze casually around the galley; there was no sign of Jane or her friends.

He abandoned his pretense of selecting dinner items, although it was true he had not eaten a proper meal in days and was hungry.

There was something he'd realized he needed to do, during the flight from Christchurch. With Jane otherwise occupied for an extended period of time outdoors, now was the perfect time to do it.

* * *

/

_Please review, I so love hearing your thoughts. You often make me think about things in ways I haven't before which always makes me happy._

_Teasers for "Chapter 11: Unpacking" - Loki takes advantage of the hole in SHIELD's computer security again and runs afoul of Odin's enchantments twice more; Jane and Loki both start unpacking, and Loki finds something surprising among his belongings._

_And excerpt:_

"This is it, home sweet home," Selby said quietly in case anyone working nights was sleeping in nearby rooms. He pushed the door open for Jane.

She stared at the door knob on the open door for a moment, realized she hadn't been given a key. "No locks?" she asked.

"No need," Wright said with a grin. "Our closest neighbors are the Russians at Vostok Station and they're a very long way away with a whole lot of ice and cold between us. Uninvited guests aren't exactly a problem here. Nothing's locked. This is the safest place in the world."

* * *

_Temporary additional note: And finally - this kills me but I've recently watched _Thor_ again on my new larger TV and have decided I simply must change Loki's eye color. They just aren't green. They seem to only be green in that poster image from _Thor_, which is what I've gone by since it's a nice close-up image. But they aren't green in the movie, they're blue. I hate to go back and change things, but as much as that annoys me it will annoy me more to continue referencing his green eyes when I've decided this was just a beguiling trick on Marvel's part when they made those posters. There's a "green eyes" reference even in this chapter (it was written a couple weeks ago), but because some people are very vested in Loki's eye color one way or the other I figured I'd put this notice up before going back and making changes so regular readers don't think I've lost my mind (not yet, anyway). Loki is still Loki whether he goes by Lucas or Loki or wears Big Red or horns or has green eyes or blue, so the only thing changing will be the references to his eye color, which I'll probably now refer to as something along the lines of "steel blue."_


	12. (11) Unpacking

_Thank you ever so much for the kind reviews! To those I couldn't reply to: Anon (Sept. 1), thank you, I really was hoping to hear from some locals from the places I've written about, and I'm always so glad to get a stamp of approval from one who knows better than I. You have much to appreciate! Guest (Sept. 2), I am so honored! I think Loki approves of stalking, BTW._

_Continued thanks to Timid Timbuktu who was immense help in getting McMurdo's geography straightened out in my mind and having all the places Jane and Loki go there make sense. And oh my goodness, I almost forgot, thanks also to Celeryy who also got research-happy and sent me some cool pictures and South Pole station walk-through videos which are truly truly awesome. Google it for yourself if you want to see where Jane and Loki are going to be hanging out for a while.  
_

_Chapter 12 "Opening" came tumbling out of me, probably from words getting pent up following how ridiculously long **this** chapter took. But this was not actually due to any plot reasons, it just came down to my obsessive need to get the details right as Jane and "Lucas" reach their destination. In any event, that means another chapter goes up pretty quickly, ironically enough the chapter it took me some three weeks to write in the first place._

_Onward then, there's one more flight to go!_

/

* * *

**Beneath**

Chapter Eleven – Unpacking

Jane stood outside sweating in Antarctica. She really hadn't expected that. Big Red was slung over her carry-ons.

Half an hour ago she had taken another long, slow ride on Ivan the Terra Bus out to Pegasus airfield. The LC-130 Hercules – a military aircraft flown by the New York Air National Guard – had already landed, but it had to be refueled and prepped before it could take off again. Among the others loitering on the ice were three others bound for the Pole – Rodrigo Ortiz, Gillian Waters, and Lucas Cane. She had chatted with Rodrigo for a little while, but found it difficult to keep up her side of the conversation. She was uncontrollably excited now that she was about to get on the final flight – at _last_! – and standing around and staring at the plane that would serve as that final link to her destination and not being able to actually get on it and get this thing underway was making her childishly antsy. She was full of pent-up frustrated energy with no way to expend it.

The previous evening had been crazy busy, with little time to think much beyond the moment. She, Morgan, and Cody had hurried down Ob Hill as quickly as was safe – during a previous stay at McMurdo Cody had sped up the descent by sliding and wanted to try it again, but Jane looked at the rocks and the rather patchy snow cover and was too nervous about ending her Antarctic trip with only a single day at McMurdo and a broken leg to show for it, so they went down the same way they came up. Back in town they bade hasty goodbyes as Jane raced off to Building 155 and her dorm room to lose the ECW gear she was now sweating into and grab her bags for Bag Drag Round 2. Cody and Morgan had offered to help, but Jane was stubborn and had never liked it when people thought she couldn't do things for herself just because she was petite. So she dragged and lugged and rolled her bags back for weighing and check-in, and then it was off to the briefing for travel to the South Pole and more safety and procedures and do's and do not's.

She'd first met Rodrigo and Gillian there, both repeat offenders to the Pole and both stuck in Mactown for the last three days after their initial flight had boomeranged due to bad weather. Rodrigo was on his second trip and would be the satellite communications tech, subbing in for someone who had to go home on a personal emergency; he was friendly and warm and sporting a solid stubble that could not quite qualify as a beard. Gillian, on her fourth trip, was relaxed but reserved, apparently uninterested in conversation beyond answering questions put to her. The distance she was putting between herself and everyone else was almost palpable…mostly, Jane thought with a guilty glance toward Lucas, because she recognized the behavior. _We're not going to be friends so let's not pretend otherwise._

Lucas seemed aloof…and overdressed. He wore stone gray slacks and a long sleeve button-down shirt in a rich brown color and made from much nicer material than anything in her closet. The shirt was tucked in and the pants were cinched at the waist with a belt, and whatever those shoes he was wearing were, they didn't exactly look practical. At least he'd foregone a tie. Rodrigo had on a multi-colored knit sweater and jeans and Gillian had on a short-sleeved blue T-shirt over a long-sleeved black one with cargo pants, while for the sake of time Jane had stuck with the Carhartts and flannel she'd had on all day. _One of these things is not like the other_, she thought. Probably he'd grown up rich. He _looked_ like somebody who'd grown up rich, and was taught proper behavior and things like that. His posture was impeccable and she'd never seen anyone make sitting down look so elegant. She remembered something he'd said back in Sydney, that he was estranged from his family. Not so estranged that he didn't have a healthy trust fund, she figured.

After the briefing she'd asked Lucas if he wanted to go for a drink with her, Morgan, and Cody, but he repeated that he planned to turn in early; Rodrigo and Gillian had other plans. So she headed out to the prefabricated steel Quonset hut that was home to the Coffee House, a coffee and wine bar with walls covered in hardwood paneling. Jane immediately found it warm and inviting and could imagine herself spending a good portion of her down time here if she were staying at McMurdo. With the hike, bag drag, and the briefing, Jane had missed dinner, so Morgan had grabbed her a sandwich and some kind of chickpea salad and a lemonade, and it was waiting for her at the table they sat at with two other guys. Jane relaxed into the chair they'd saved for her and enjoyed the evening, lingering for over two hours when she'd meant to stay only one. She did limit herself to just one glass of Australian shiraz, paranoid about the deleterious effects of alcohol in the Antarctic that the earlier briefing had warned about…although no one else seemed all that concerned.

She'd hurried back out into the sunlit night, gotten ready for bed, closed tired eyes under the covers, and fallen asleep in minutes, never even waking when her unmet roommate showed up sometime during the night.

In the morning she'd been ravenous and raced to get ready and head out to the galley, quietly so she would not disturb her roommate. A hot hearty breakfast later she'd said final farewells to Morgan, Cody, and a few other friendly faces she'd met along the way in case she didn't see them at lunch. They had jobs to do and she had e-mails to send.

She had internet access from her dorm room, but she'd heard the views from Crary Lab were outstanding so she took her laptop there, Erik first and foremost on her mind. She'd sensed he was struggling since what Thor's brother had done to him, and hadn't been able to see him in person since it happened. She'd made a commitment to "be there" for him as much as she could even though she couldn't physically be there at all. She owed him at least that much. She spent a couple of hours sending Erik and a few friends descriptions of her ECW gear and of her kayaking and sheep farm tours in New Zealand, uploading a few pictures from her phone to send. The sheep farm reminded her of Thor and his parking lot visit, and remembering Thor's visit reminded her that she'd again failed to get a photo of Thor; and this time – as far as she knew – no one from SHIELD had been following her in New Zealand snapping pictures they could later send her. Of course, it would have been in seriously bad form to ask this time around. _I know you're busy trying to prevent a war, but here, say cheese!_

She wandered around exploring McMurdo for a while then went to a lunch she wasn't hungry for but figured she should try to eat anyway given the day's schedule. After another round of goodbyes she went back to her room to prepare for departure, took her carry-ons, handed in her key, and headed out for check-in and her appointment with Ivan the Terra Bus.

She couldn't believe this was real.

When they were finally signaled to board, Jane tried to catch Lucas's eye to share her excitement with him, but he was studying the aircraft. She tried to study it too, but didn't really know anything about airplanes or have much interest in learning. It had kind of a fat nose, four propellers, and red stripes on the wings and tail, or whatever you called those parts of a plane. Still, this one was special, because of where it was taking her…and because of the giant skis it used in landings. She climbed up the handful of stairs and was surprised to find how claustrophobic it felt on the inside, stuffed to the brim it seemed with cargo, most of it carefully wrapped in anonymous giant shrink-wrapped boxes, plus their luggage secured in oversized green bags and a few bulky random items, such as a piece of machinery that looked something like a giant piston. The women's bathroom, in turned out, involved a veritable obstacle course of climbing up and over that cargo; Jane was glad she'd gone right before departing the station, and decided not to drink any more of the water she'd brought with her, regardless of the medical briefing. She figured since this was one of the last flights of the season, they must be trying to pile as much cargo as possible into every flight.

She settled uncomfortably into a red paratrooper jump seat; it wasn't that the seat itself was so uncomfortable, just that it was a paratrooper jump seat. If parachuting out the side of an airplane was part of the standard training for going to the South Pole, SHIELD had skipped that section, she thought with an uneasy laugh. She was about 98% sure that the jump seats had nothing to do with anyone actually using a parachute over Antarctica.

The ramp started to close up, blotting out more and more of the bright sunshine. It was February 9. Amundsen-Scott Station closed for winter on February 15; from then on there would be no more flights until November. She glanced around at her fellow passengers as they were sealed inside the plane – Rodrigo to her right, and Lucas and Gillian across from them, largely hidden behind the cargo. This was it. In three hours they would all be at the South Pole, with no turning back.

/

* * *

/

While Jane had been out climbing Observation Hill, Loki found her dorm room, which turned out to be just down the corridor from the room he'd allowed her to lead him to earlier, and just one corridor away from his own.

He made it there without incident and found himself standing before her locked door. He had expected this obstacle and was prepared for the consequences of what he would have to do. The lock was a simple design of pins and tumbler, not often encountered on Asgard, at least not on its own. Simplicity aside, Loki was no locksmith and he could not see what he was doing. He bent over a little at the waist, closed his eyes, reached his fingers toward the keyhole, and _felt_ for the shapes inside the lock. He concentrated until he could visualize them, and tried to cast aside the concern that in the long minutes this was taking someone could come along and observe him paying an unnatural amount of attention to a doorknob.

He knew he'd been successful even before the doorknob turned from the familiar pain that shot up from his right foot up into his knee. He stumbled inside and closed the door behind him, quickly assessing his surroundings. Three sets of bunkbeds, two of them made, Jane's laptop carrier on top of the one to his right, no one else in the room. He'd knocked before beginning on the lock, but even so he couldn't be certain he wouldn't walk in on someone until got inside.

He only needed the laptop, but decided it made more sense to take it in its bag. Making sure the door remained unlocked so that he wouldn't have to expend any further magic that invoked "Curse Number Two," as he had taken to thinking of it, Loki crept out into the corridor again, clenching his jaw against another wave of simmering rage at again having to stoop to what was essentially a petty criminal act.

In the end, it turned out to be much easier than he'd hoped; she hadn't even logged out of her e-mail. SHIELD's misguided confidence that the one to whom Clint Barton had revealed everything would not be coming back continued to pay off, and while Loki was downloading what he needed onto Jane's laptop using the internet connection at the Coffee House – his own room was wired for this but was also occupied by three men he had no desire to interact with – he took a cursory look over the other files on her computer. He internally filed away bits and pieces for potentially useful later reference, but only one item gave him real pause. It was rather a series of items, eight images of Jane and Thor – side-by-side, holding hands, embracing – which she had uploaded only a couple of days ago. Loki recognized the background visible in some of the images depending on the angle; it was the same phenomenon he'd observed outside of Melfort. Given the upload date and the fact that an aurora was only visible near the planet's northern-most and southern-most areas…Loki's eyes narrowed.

Thor had gone to Jane in Norway.

Loki had seen for himself how tired Odin was; he was almost certainly again postponing his restoration. Thor would not have remained long. Just long enough to warn Jane to keep an eye out for his wayward outcast former brother.

In retrospect he should not have taunted Thor with the comment about Norway; there was no need to plant the idea that he may have known where SHIELD had sent Jane. But Thor was so delightfully tauntable he'd simply been unable to resist, and his reaction had been entertaining even in its predictability. And in the end it seemed no harm had come of it. At least he hadn't seen any sign of unexpected thunderstorms yet, he thought, swallowing and flicking an involuntary glance upward.

The process took around 45 minutes, most of that due to the slow internet connection. He was soon back in Jane's room, the door mercifully still unlocked and opened with a simple flick of the wrist. He checked again that the stuffed animal she'd bought in Sydney was placed in her laptop carrier exactly as he'd found it, that the location and angle of the bag's placement was also precisely matched, that the blanket on her bed was no more or less rumpled than it had been before.

His hopes for a rather flawless day crashed when he heard a woman's voice at the door – not Jane's. He had only a second to come up with a plan, and in the end there was only one other person who was supposed to be in this room.

"Oh, hey, I'm Wanda," the woman who came in said. She should have seemed short but now seemed oddly tall.

"Jane," Loki said, fresh needles of pain shooting up his leg. He couldn't hide the grimace that came with this one; in his haste he'd simply reacted and forgotten Curse Number Two. He cleared his throat and through the pain knew he'd failed to come out with anything that approximated Jane's voice. He could create of himself at least a passable version of just about anything he could see, but he hadn't exactly had a chance to study the details of the anatomy of Jane's vocal tract to be able to produce sounds at the proper frequencies.

Wanda started to say something else but Loki only wanted one thing: the most rapid escape possible. The pain in his leg was already fading but his ability to mimic Jane wasn't going to get much better. Clutching his/Jane's stomach he mumbled, "Sorry, I have to go," in the closest he could get to Jane's voice. He hurried to the door, pushed past Wanda, and turned into the corridor toward the restrooms. He heard the door close behind him, followed by another door further down the corridor. He took a quick glance around, found himself alone, and quickly reverted to his own form with a shudder. That had _not_ been pleasant. He hoped it wouldn't create a problem.

And so far it didn't seem that it had. He had glimpsed Jane as she went for breakfast in the morning, and nothing had appeared amiss. He glanced at her now, waiting at Pegasus airfield, and she seemed lost in thought. He hoped she would feel his eyes on her and turn toward him – he would let her see the disdain he held for her, just for a moment – but she did not. He looked back at the airplane and waited. When they were finally told to board, he dawdled, getting on after Jane so he could make sure he did not sit near her.

Things had not gone entirely according to plan at first, but they were most definitely back on track.

/

* * *

/

Jane and Rodrigo both spent about half an hour of the three-hour flight hanging out in the cockpit with the pilots. The views of the Transantarctic Mountains with their ridges of rock undulating out from beneath the snow were breathtaking. They reminded you that for all the snow and ice, this was not the Arctic, this was Antarctica, an honest-to-goodness land-mass continent. And strange as she knew it would sound, Jane couldn't help remarking that in places they made her think of a brown-and-white version of Arizona's Painted Desert. The pilots had interesting stories to tell, having served between them numerous tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they weren't averse to telling them, even over the roar of the engines.

Jane snapped off some pictures on her phone, and was really beginning to regret not investing in a decent regular camera. SHIELD wasn't making her rich but she could've afforded a camera; she just wasn't used to having any excess cash that could be put into personal luxuries instead of the expensive components needed for much of the equipment she used in her research. Her five-year-old two-generations-ago cell phone wasn't exactly going to cut it in seriously sub-zero temperatures.

Back in her seat, she tried to read, but found herself re-reading the same page and even the same paragraph over and over when the words wouldn't sink in. At one point she worked her way around the narrow walkway looping between the cargo in the middle and the seats along the bulkheads to say something – she wasn't actually sure what – to Lucas, but he and Gillian were two peas in entirely unconnected pods, both appearing to be asleep, Gillian with headphones trailing wires down to a probable Mp3 player somewhere. Jane returned to her seat to Rodrigo's shouted "Not long now!" and fell back into an old strategy of relaxing through rote repetition of facts she'd memorized to a beat in school that helped her still recall even things she didn't need to actually remember anymore. She began with reciting the elements of the periodic table, but it didn't work very well because she kept getting stuck at whatever came after cadmium, which only further agitated her.

Then at last as Jane gripped the edge of her seat in another attack of nerves – skis were supposed to _maintain_ your momentum, not slow it – the plane did in fact come to a stop and competing heady emotions swirled in her enough to moisten her eyes. She shook out her fingers, which had gone a little numb, and self-consciously dabbed at her eye as though she'd had a tiny bit of debris in it rather than a tear that threatened to fall.

_The door isn't boarded up_, Jane thought, remembering what Young-Soo had said. _It's opening right in front of me._

Rodrigo was nudging her. "Gear," he shouted over the roar of the turboprops. He was already in Big Red and was pulling his facemask on.

Embarrassed, Jane pulled on her jacket and started grabbing for the rest of her gear. As soon as she was properly bundled up she stood and gathered her two bags. Cold air was rushing in through the open hatch; Jane could feel it but with everything on she was pretty sure she'd experienced New Mexico winter nights that were colder than this. She followed her fellow passengers out the door, down the steps, and onto the packed snow that the plane had somehow landed on.

The air got colder and packed a real punch now that she was off the plane and the wind was whipping from the turboprops – they'd been briefed that at the Pole they left the engines running to prevent the fuel lines from freezing. If the pilot had announced the temperature she'd missed it, but it was definitely colder than McMurdo. She could feel the altitude, too. Her bags felt heavier than they should have and each full, normal breath of air felt like it wasn't quite enough. Definitely not your typical New Mexico evening. Tromso hadn't been this cold in winter, her lungs were telling her.

Boots crunching over the ice, she kept her head down and followed Rodrigo's back as their group moved away from the plane and its propellers, and when he stopped to turn, perhaps to check on her or to look back at the airplane, she got her first real view of the station. Gun-metal gray, the large building's four wings stuck out and obscured portions of the long central area they each connected to. To her right were numerous smaller buildings, a few heavy-duty vehicles that looked as though they belonged in this climate, and large wooden boxes of various sizes. To her left – just a few buildings and endless snow and ice, all the way to the horizon where the sun was up but low.

A little further from the plane some 40 or 50 people were standing around with familiar carry-on bags and lots of red, and a small knot of people were approaching the new arrivals. Jane couldn't help staring at the larger group, those who were perhaps saner than she and getting out while they still had the chance. She laughed at herself, then coughed on the dry cold air that rushed in after the laugh. Someone clapped an arm around Rodrigo's shoulder and the two started for the station. Someone else approached Gillian, but Jane's attention quickly turned to the two men coming up to her and Lucas.

"Cyrus Wright, call me Wright," said a burly bearded man in an unzipped brown jacket instead of Big Red, extending a hand to first Jane, then Lucas.

"Selby Higgins," said the taller man, balding though he looked rather young, sporting the familiar red jacket, all zipped up.

Jane and Lucas briefly introduced themselves, and were welcomed by Selby and Wright.

"We're the winter team for the South Pole Telescope, but we'll talk plenty of shop later. Come on, let's get you inside," Selby said, and started to take Jane's two bags.

She protested, but he insisted and she gave in reluctantly. Lucas seemed happy to let Wright carry his bags; he must have been feeling the altitude, too. When they made it to the main building and started up the exterior stairs – the building was elevated to allow for snow drift – and Jane's legs and lungs began to burn way more than they should have for just one flight of stairs, her reluctance turned to gratitude.

A thick heavy door opened and Jane followed Selby through it, grateful for the warmth that hit her and the decreased strain on her body when she was walking on level ground again. On the right were stairs leading up to the second level; they turned into the first room on the left, a lounge with couches and chairs and a flat-screen TV.

Jane sank gratefully into a green sofa in what they were told was the B3 lounge, having quickly returned to the more familiar condition of sweating in all her gear. Big Red was unzipped and shrugged out of; she slung it over the back of her chair. Gillian was arguing that it was her fourth winter here and she shouldn't have to stay for this orientation, but Ken Ryan, the station support supervisor, was adamant. Apparently Ken's predecessor had been more lenient.

They filled out a few papers, watched an orientation video, and then Ken made a few remarks. They would all meet with the winter site manager at 8:30 the next morning, and Jane and Lucas would then meet with the science support manager at 9:30. They got their room assignments, and when they went back out into the hallway they found Selby and Wright loitering there as promised. This time Jane insisted on carrying her own bags, though she noted that Lucas let Wright take his again. She and Lucas followed Selby and Wright, while Gillian and Rodrigo headed off on their own, already knowing their way around. They passed through more industrial-looking corridor with exposed ductwork and pipes in the ceiling and metal doors with portholes in them and the occasional brightly-colored tiled square patterns on the wall until coming to a stop in a corridor of the A1 wing.

"This is it, home sweet home," Selby said quietly in case anyone working nights was sleeping in nearby rooms. He pushed the door open for Jane.

She stared at the door knob on the open door for a moment, realized she hadn't been given a key. "No locks?" she asked.

"No need," Wright said with a grin. "Our closest neighbors are the Russians at Vostok Station and they're a very long way away with a whole lot of ice and cold between us. Uninvited guests aren't exactly a problem here. Nothing's locked. This is the safest place in the world."

_Creepy_, Jane thought, but shrugged it off and glanced at Lucas, who had stopped with Wright at a room just two doors down. Wright then ducked into Lucas's room and came back out without the bags.

"I'm in the next room down, by the way, on the inside," Selby said, pointing past Lucas. "I guess this is the newbie strip. So, you guys can find your way back to the galley? Good," Selby continued when he got two nods. "We'll see you in half an hour or so then?"

"Sounds great, thanks," Jane said, stepping into the room and flicking on the light. The first thing that caught her eye was the bed. She was going to need mountain-climbing gear to get into it. Then she noted a little white plastic stepstool at the foot. So, okay, no mountain-climbing gear necessary, but middle-of-the-night barely-awake trips to the bathroom down the hall were going to be pretty risky. She pulled the stool over and tested it out, decided she was going to have to find a taller stool or make herself a booster seat version of this one. The desk and chair looked perfectly adequate, and with the armoire closet plus the drawers under the raised bed she figured storage wouldn't be a problem. She took a few steps over to the narrow window – she could feel the cold coming through it – and had a view mostly of the next wing of the station, and off to the left snow and various small structures.

Although it was cold right by the window, the station was quite well heated and Jane started shedding layers, then opened up her boomerang bag carry-on and pulled out a pair of jeans to go with the white T-shirt and unbuttoned blue-and-white plaid flannel she already had on. She tugged on a pair of sneakers – plain old sneakers – and sighed with contentment. She felt like herself again, normal, full of a rush of energy, ready to conquer the world. She looked back toward the window, reminded herself that she and her sneakers and worn jeans and flannel were at the South Pole. She chuckled at the sense of disbelief that had so quickly washed over her; in these clothes she could be just about anywhere and easily forget.

Turning to look at herself in the mirror, she grimaced at her unruly hair. Balaclavas were not helpful in that regard. She found her brush and began working on it. A ponytail would have been easier, but she suspected that with only two two-minute showers per week allowed, there would be more than enough ponytails in her future so it would be nice to leave it down for now. Hair reasonably in place, she glanced at her watch, then struggled to get her too-tall bed made with the linens that had been left in the room. When she was done with that, she still had a few minutes to start unpacking her things. Just setting her laptop on the desk and plugging it into the LAN connection made it start to feel like _her_ desk. After nearly three weeks of hotels and a whirlwind of travel and sightseeing, this really was her home-sweet-home until November.

She opened the shallow top right-hand drawer to put away her thick black notebook and found that she could not slide it all the way in. Reaching her hand into the back of the drawer, she grasped something hard and pulled it out. It was a hardcover book, _Roses by Many Names_, with a captivating close-up shot down into the opened petals of a peachy-pink rose. According to the cover it catalogued over two thousand rose varieties with photographs and detailed information on where and how to grow each one.

Jane pursed her lips, glanced around the room. It was empty save her carry-ons and the furniture, with no vestiges of the prior occupant. It had been cleaned well, yet somehow this book had been missed by whoever cleaned it and forgotten by the resident. She raised her eyebrows as it occurred to her it may have been left deliberately, a gift to the newcomer, a warm reminder of the life that existed outside this harsh, barren environment.

She stuck her notebook in the drawer and the book on top of it – she could at least _start out_ being neat, she figured – and decided she'd try to read about one rose per day. It would be good for her to focus on something unrelated to work each day, and the connection to her mother appealed to her as well. She added a couple of pens and pencils and some draft paper to the drawer, then shook out her hands; they'd started to tingle a bit. She could feel a headache coming on, too, but ignored it and continued unpacking her carry-ons.

/

* * *

/

Loki boosted himself up onto the bed with his satchel and consciously let the tension drain out of him. His muscles went slack and his eyes drifted closed. He hadn't slept since leaving Asgard – and he hadn't slept well there. He could admit to himself, now that he was truly at rest, that he was exhausted.

He took another glance around the room. _Meager_ was putting it politely. His prison cell had been larger and had not required him to walk down a hall to reach a communal bathroom; the bed in his old room in the palace had been about the size of this room. There was a pervasive chemical smell that spoke of a recent thorough cleaning and still Loki discerned the scent of the previous occupant.

None of this bothered him in the slightest.

He had made it. He was in the door, the uninvited guest that Wright was so unconcerned about. A lazy smirk crept over his face as he pictured Wright carrying around his bags, an unwitting servant of that uninvited guest. He had made it, and no one was the slightest bit suspicious.

Jane might have lingering doubts, but he could fix that. His smirk turned into a laugh, a real laugh absent of malice or darkness, making him feel as light as air. Jane thought SHIELD had sent him. _I know exactly who you are_, she'd said. It had actually given him a brief moment of apprehension. Him, working as a spy for SHIELD. The irony was too much. He would have to tell…someone…about it…someday.

He sobered; the smile fell from his lips.

This room would suffice. Meager though it was, it was his for as long as he needed it to be, and lock or no, he would not be disturbed here. He could blanket the room to block sound waves and sleep without any concern. He could shed these uncomfortable clothes and put on something much more pleasant from his satchel.

As soon as that thought occurred to him he jumped off the bed and started pulling off the layers of rough garments as rapidly as he could. With uncharacteristic disorganization he opened and upended the satchel, dumping its contents on the bed. Everything inside was from Asgard, all except for the horse hat he'd been given in Melfort. Rifling through the few garments that had been packed for him he found the thin soft long-sleeved black tunic and loose pants he usually wore to bed and pulled them on. The association of sleep with these garments was strong, and he found his eyelids growing heavy. He could skip dinner; he could skip the tour. He hadn't come here for Cyrus-call-me-Wright or Selby and he didn't care about sports facilities and greenhouses and saunas. He would let Jane show him all these things later.

He ran a hand down his body and went to Jane's door back in his basic issued gear after tugging on his actual boots, scowling over the right foot that felt much better bare.

/

* * *

/

A strong sense of déjà vu struck Jane as she stood in her doorway looking at Lucas. It was him, and yet not him in some way, a different him. Less energy, less…something. So when he told her he was feeling tired and not going to dinner, she didn't try to press him to go.

"Do you want me to bring you something? I could leave a tray outside your door."

"No, thank you. I'll be fine until breakfast. I just wanted to let you know so you don't wait for me."

"Well, okay. I'll see you at breakfast then?"

"Probably so," he answered with a tight smile. "Goodnight," he said with a quick nod, then turned back to his room.

"Goodnight," Jane called softly after him. She closed her door with a sigh. She would bring him something anyway. This wasn't going to be easy.

/

* * *

/

Back in his room Loki let his clothes revert to his own and pulled off his boots again for sweet relief. He quickly began putting away the things from his satchel that were scattered over the bed so he could get to the sheets that were stacked underneath it. He had never made a bed before in his life but if he could avert wars, start wars, and orchestrate the death of a king, he could certainly figure out how to properly put sheets on a bed. Still, if only he had that lovely little scepter, he would find Wright and happily make him do it for him.

He picked up the satchel and stuck his hand inside, feeling around to make sure it was empty. His hand brushed a small protrusion in one of the pockets. He opened the satchel wide and grasped the leather tie that lashed the cover down to a metal prong on the pocket, pulling it away. Reaching inside, he found a clear glass container of dark red liquid, slightly shorter and fatter than his forefinger, narrowed at the neck and capped by a clear glass stopper. He knitted his brow; unlike everything else in his satchel, he had never seen this item before.

He hopped up onto the bed and held the container up closer to his eyes, and when his eyes told him nothing new he reached out with something deeper.

_Loki._

He blinked, startled. He glanced toward the door, then around the rest of the room. No one was there. No one knew his real name. He sealed the room from all sound waves; no sound would come in and none would go out. He reached out to see the energies around the bottle again. They were muddled, odd, unnatural. Bent and wrongly colored and dark.

_Loki._

His mouth fell slightly ajar. He knew that voice. It was his mother's. He closed his mouth, focused his attention again, and this time did not lose that focus when he heard his name.

_Loki. My son. Listen carefully to me; you will only hear this message once. In this vial is a tonic of strongest magic, a link between me and the enchanted gem I will have given you. Thor has told me of the enemies you have made, and his fears for your safety. I fear as well, Loki. You will learn that your father has not left you defenseless. Magic has not been forbidden to you, only its inappropriate use. Defending yourself in true innocence is not inappropriate. Yet so much of your innocence has been lost, I still fear for you. No one knows what I have done; your father would have forbidden it. He can be severe, Loki, but do not see this as a lack of love; he has been equally severe with Thor when he believed it was merited. And if there had been time to prepare, when Thor was banished, I would have done the same for him that I am doing for you. This is my love for you both._

_Listen carefully, my son. So long as you wear the necklace I will give you, if you drink the contents of this vial, you will be immediately brought to safety by my side. You mustn't do this lightly; the journey would not be an easy one. The ingredients were difficult to obtain, and there will be consequences for us both if it is used; I wouldn't be able to give you this means of escape a second time. I hope that it will not be needed a first time. Please, Loki, learn. Seek understanding and compassion for others and you may find it for yourself. Remember the love you have felt for us and we for you. Let go of your anger and let your pain heal. We will always be your family. And we will anxiously await your return._

Loki stared at the vial and listened as hard he could, as though he could pull forth more words through sheer will. But none came. He laid it down on the bed, then picked it up again. Silence. He relaxed his grip on it, realizing that in the intensity of his efforts he was squeezing it. It wouldn't do to shatter this little surprise.

His head began to hurt. From whatever magic was used to impart his mother's words, from fatigue, from Odin's curses – any or all, he thought, shaking his head. It was too much to take in. Words and phrases echoed in his mind. Some that shocked, some that warmed his reluctant heart as only his mother could, some that evoked a familiar rage and a desire to lash out and harm. For now, he could focus only on the shock. A secret escape route. There was something slightly distasteful in the idea of being rescued by running to hide himself behind his mother's skirts, but he had to admit there were probably no safer skirts in all the realms. Although she rarely exercised it, his soft-spoken mother wielded powerful enchanting magic. And although there had been no indication that the threat against him from an unknown realm would be made good on, this was the only thing he truly feared. An escape route could prove useful. He put the little glass bottle back in the pocket of his satchel and fastened the leather tie over the metal hook to keep it secured inside. He would take this satchel with him everywhere, and he had already promised not to remove the chain. Now there was nothing to fear.

Now there was one less variable, one less reason for being in this frozen wasteland, which would permit him to pursue others with greater attention.

Tomorrow he would begin pursuing variables. Pursuing Jane, in his own way. Tonight he would sleep.

* * *

/

_Now's as good a time and place as any to give a public thanks to the men and women at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station (yes, right now, 2012 winter season, they have about a month and a half to two months to go), a number of whom have so graciously responded to my initial e-mail and then answered my questions about layout and equipment and schedules and furniture and group dynamics and procedures and just about anything you can imagine, and sent pictures and links and diagrams. I literally could not be writing this without them. (OK, I could, but it would be bad.) That doesn't mean I won't miss something somewhere and get a few details wrong, that's obviously not their fault but mine. I won't continue to mention them here, but I owe them an awful lot for pretty much every chapter that follows here, and to varying extents in earlier chapters as well. Guess what the Polies watched for their Midwinter celebration? _The Avengers_!_

_Teasers for Ch. 12 ("Opening") - Tony Stark puts in an appearance (sort of!), and "Lucas" challenges Jane's assumptions about what can and can't be done._

_And excerpt:_

"Okay…so…maybe we should get to know each other, huh? One step at a time. We've still got" – she paused to glance up at the screen hanging from the ceiling – "about an hour before our meeting with the winter site manager. Let's get started."

"All right."

_(I realize this is just "she" and "he" in this particular bit...but come on, now, I'm pretty sure names aren't necessary.)_


	13. (12) Opening

_There is one reason and one reason only this chapter is making it out tonight (9/9) instead of probably tomorrow - YamiVixen. ;-)_

_Please note, I *may* be doing some traveling for a couple of weeks, starting in about a week. If so, I won't have much time to write this week as I prepare, but will hopefully have time while traveling, and then hopefully will still be able to post a new chapter or two, we'll see how it goes!_

___Meanwhile, hope you enjoy this installment!_

/

* * *

**Beneath**

Chapter Twelve – Opening

"You okay?" Selby Higgins asked as he, Cyrus Wright, and Jane sat down to dinner in the galley, this one much smaller than McMurdo's. The screens hanging above the seating area announced it was -36 Fahrenheit outside.

Jane nodded. He'd noticed her shaking out her hands in between bites of beef stew. "My hands are tingly. If this is frostbite I'm in trouble," she said with a laugh. "And I've got a little headache." That was partly true, at least. It had _started_ as a little headache.

"Diamox and dehydration," Wright said. "The tingling will go away once you stop the Diamox. It's a common side effect. The headache will go away once you knock back a couple of those," he added, pointing to her blue Nalgene water bottle.

"Oh, right, I remember them telling me that now, about the Diamox." The medication was supposed to help acclimatization to high altitude, and she'd taken the first pill the night before, with three more to go. 8,000 feet was considered high altitude and they were at 9,300 feet which felt like over 11,000 feet due to the thinner atmosphere and lower oxygen levels. "Bottoms up," she said, and gulped down the rest of her water.

"You should get a couple of liters in you before you go to bed. You'll be up all night but you won't have a headache," Wright said with a grin.

"Great," Jane said with a grimace, remembering how precarious getting out of bed in the middle of the night would be.

"I just got here two weeks ago; took about a week to feel normal," Selby offered. "I've started up on the treadmill now in the morning and I think in a few more days I'll go running outside."

Wright nodded. "You have to build up to it. I got here in November. I could run for miles out there now. If I wanted to."

Selby rolled his eyes, and they moved on to shop talk and professional interests, but Jane found herself hesitant to go into much detail about herself, preferring instead to listen and ask questions. These men were both about her age but had worked in mainstream science, had been part of major scientific endeavors including the South Pole Telescope project that brought them here, and she was pretty sure she recognized Wright's name from a recent publication on galaxy clusters. Jane's professional interests, spurred on and further shaped by The New Mexico Incidents and Thor, were perhaps not exactly things you brought up the first time you sat down to dinner with a couple of strangers. And nevertheless it did come up, sort of, when Selby asked about the Stark Institute for Scientific Innovation, her sponsor on this trip.

"It's a new research organization, established by Tony Stark," she said, after just a moment's hesitation, probably not long enough for people who didn't know her to notice.

"Stark? As in…?" Selby asked, trailing off. Wright just glanced between the two of them.

"That's the one," Jane confirmed, following it up with a bite of pineapple upside down cake.

"Tony Stark. Stark Industries," Selby said, looking at Wright, who still hadn't made the connection. "New York?"

Wright's eyes went up. "Ohhhh, _that_ Stark. You _know_ him?"

She shook her head. "Not really. I mean, not in person. We've spoken a few times," she said with a half-smile. He was enough to deal with over a video call; he must be exhausting in person. "But look, I don't want to make a big deal out of it. I don't really have anything to do with him; his institute is just sponsoring my research. I guess he's sponsoring Lucas, too, we haven't really talked about it."

And then somehow, mercifully, both men seemed to accept that and the conversation moved on. Tomorrow, when she got to go out to the Dark Sector Lab and check out their equipment and inspect her own – they'd confirmed it had arrived – she'd have to start talking more about her work, but for now she was content to leave it vague. While Erik and SHIELD's technology development wing may bandy about terms like "the Foster Theory," she was so far removed from the broader academic circles that she had no sense of how widely her adaptation of wormhole theory was even known, much less seriously considered in the scientific community at large. She was for once glad that her name was a common one. Anonymity would be hard to come by in this small and shrinking crowd.

_Is that what you want, Jane, anonymity? Since when?_ she asked herself as they dropped off their trays and recycling on the way out of the galley and her tour of the elevated station began. For years she'd longed for acceptance of her work. Maybe there was nothing wrong with longing for a little acceptance of herself, too.

Selby and Wright were laughing about something she'd missed, so she joined in, pretending she'd heard the joke. They poked their heads in rooms all along the second level and then went down to the first level and did the same; Jane was impressed with all the after-work activity options here and hoped she'd manage to pull herself away from work enough to take advantage of it from time to time.

Near the end of the main corridor they stopped at the post office, which would soon close for the winter like the rest of the station. Wright told her a bit about the post office and showed her the little convenience store beside it, then launched into a theatrical tone. "We hope you've enjoyed your tour of the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, and would like to thank you for your attention. And now for the grand finale…you've got mail!" He bent over and picked up one of several boxes lining the walls and handed it to her; Selby followed suit with what looked like a poster tube.

"Really?" Jane asked with wide eyes. And sure enough, her name was on both packages, with no return address.

"One more, actually." Wright held out a third, larger package, but her hands were full with two bottles of water and the other two packages. Leaning in toward it Jane could see this one had a return address in Tromso, Norway.

"Thanks, this is awesome. I can't believe I had mail before I even got here," Jane said, staring down at her packages and wondering who in the world could have sent the tube and the small package; the one from Tromso made her wonder if she'd simply left something behind.

The men helped Jane collect the rest of her luggage that had been unloaded from the plane and get it to her room, then the three parted ways, with Jane again declining an invitation to the Last Gasp dance party the last group of departing summer staff had planned for the evening.

She opened up one of her suitcases and grabbed a chocolate-peanut butter energy bar from her paltry snack stash and took that and one of the Nalgene water bottles back out into the corridor, leaving them at Lucas's door. She'd meant to bring something more than an energy bar, but beef stew and the rest of the galley's offerings didn't seem very amenable to sitting out in a hallway, possibly all night long. She exchanged a quick greeting with someone passing by, then returned to her room.

Jane pulled off her sneakers and set them against the wall, then wiggled her toes, which were tingling now along with her hands, as if they'd gone to sleep and were trying to wake up. It was annoying, but luckily she had packages to distract herself with. She grabbed a pen and punctured the tape on the largest box, the one from Tromso but no person's name on it, then slid it down as though it were a knife. With a little effort she got the box open and reached down inside, separating the packing materials until she came to another box. Her jaw dropped open. It was a digital SLR camera – a good one, with a pentaprism and condenser lens and…. Jane read through the camera's features on the box. She wasn't sure how much this particular model cost, but she figured it to be at least a thousand dollars.

On the bottom of the box was a card. She opened it and instantly recognized Peter Larson's handwriting. _From all of us. Use it well and send us a photo from time to time._

Jane smiled. It was surprisingly nice of them; with the exception of Peter – and not even always with him – she had never felt particularly at ease with the SHIELD people in Tromso. She'd been brought there under false pretenses then told she couldn't leave, and physically prevented from leaving when she'd tried. Being essentially held prisoner, even if you were constantly being told "it's for your own good," didn't exactly make for warm fuzzy friendships.

Maybe they felt guilty, she thought.

_False pretenses._ She peered down at the box with the camera again, opened it and worked the camera out of the interior packaging and its own box. Maybe she should take it apart before using it, give it a little inspection, make sure nothing had been added since it was manufactured. But no, SHIELD knew she was good with hardware; if they'd modified the camera they would have done it in the software.

She put the camera back in the larger box, chiding herself through the headache that hadn't let up. She sat down at her desk and opened her bottle of water, taking several long gulps. _You're being irrational_, she told herself. _Why would they send you some kind of bugged camera, what are you going to take pictures of, anyway? Snow? Auroras? Buildings? People? The exact same things everybody else here takes pictures of. What could possibly be in it for SHIELD?_

_And why would they send her an assistant just to spy on her, when she had readily agreed to share with them all her research findings and had never held anything back from them ever since those first few awkward days after Thor left and Phil made good on his word to return all her equipment?_

She remembered questioning how Lucas had managed to pass his psych eval, and realized she'd been questioning the wrong person. There'd been a question on the written part about whether you thought people were following you. She'd marked no, because she knew it was the right answer.

Jane sighed and reached down for the smaller package and the poster tube, setting them on the desk. Erik was the only person she would feel comfortable opening up to about all this; no one knew her better and no one was better at making sure she didn't stray too far off the path of reason. But Erik had enough to deal with at the moment. Even had they been in the same room instead of continents apart she wouldn't have burdened him with this.

She pushed those thoughts aside and worked through the tape around the end of the poster tube until she could open it up and turn the tube on end. A tightly-rolled poster and an envelope slid out. She unfurled the poster carefully; it was long and narrow, a panoramic view over palm trees, bushes and flowers, and a rocky outcropping that quickly gave way to water over which the sunlight's reflection shone a diffuse column down the center. Jane thought she could detect the barest curvature of the earth where the water met the blue sky of the horizon, probably just an optical illusion. It was beautiful, and when she glanced up from her desk where she had rolled out the poster to the space between the desk's top shelf and the ceiling, she realized it was perfectly sized for that spot. She could lie in bed and feel like she was looking out to the ocean in a tropical paradise.

Curious, she let the poster roll back up and turned to the envelope. Inside was a single sheet of plain white paper with scribbled, barely legible writing. _The view from my Malibu place. Mi casa, su casa, when you're ready to defrost and leave the ice to the penguins. PS, Pepper says I should tell you not to get the wrong idea. PPS, unless you like that idea. PPPS, Pepper just called me a bad name, and said you don't know me well enough to know I'm probably kidding. PPPPS, I added the "probably" after Pepper stopped reading over my shoulder._ Jane laughed and shook her head. The "probably" was indeed inserted with a little arrow. Yeah, Tony Stark was enough to handle via video conference. Crisper handwriting followed. _He's kidding. He hasn't been using the Malibu property very much lately, and he has plenty of others. It's yours whenever you want it and for however long. Pepper Potts. _Jane wondered how Pepper – his assistant or manager or wrangler or whatever exactly she was – dealt with him on a daily basis. Probably with lots of spa time.

The small second box was full of pale yellow glow-in-the-dark stars of different sizes and a package of some kind of fancy double-sided tape, with a note from Pepper advising her to use the tape for the stars and the poster because it wouldn't damage the walls or ceiling when she took it off to leave. There was no note from Tony so she assumed the stars were Pepper's idea. And it was silly but completely perfect at the same time. Jane liked being able to sleep out under the stars once in a while, but that wasn't exactly going to happen at the South Pole. Now it would, sort of.

The poster was so long and curled up it was going to take a second set of hands to get it up on the wall, so for now Jane got to work creating constellations on her ceiling.

/

* * *

/

Loki woke the next morning to incessant high-pitched beeping. It took him a moment to localize the sound and remember it came from the watch he'd bought in Sydney; he'd never used its alarm function before. It was a rather disagreeable way to wake up, he decided, already considering ways he might modify the device's workings. The skin underneath the watch at his wrist itched, the last sign of its healing. He ignored it as he turned off the alarm.

He sat up, expanded his chest, rolled his neck around his shoulders. He had slept well, and far longer than he normally did; he hadn't expected to need to be woken by alarm. He had not dreamed, or if he had it had blessedly not been the sort of dream that disturbed his sleep. He felt good. Better than he had since…better than he had in a very long time.

Events from the day before came flooding back to him and he jerked his head around. The satchel hung where he had left it on the black metal post at the head of the bed frame. For a second he'd thought perhaps _that_ had been a dream.

_Learn_, his mother had told him. He would indeed learn. He learned from everything, and there was much to learn here. But he suspected it would again not be what the All-Father intended him to learn.

_Understanding and compassion_. These he had no need of. Not for himself, and not for others, certainly not from or for Midgardians.

He pulled the thin tunic over his head and off. The chain was around his neck, but he had to pull the gem around to the front from where it had settled during the night. Save for the brilliance of its tiny cuts, there was nothing out of the ordinary about the unknown red gem. It wasn't glowing, and to Loki's knowledge had not glowed since he'd left Asgard. Perhaps it was too far away from the one who gave for it to work, or perhaps he'd simply not happened to be looking at it at the same times that his mother had thought of him. He never questioned that the love existed; if it had still been there after his failure on Earth then it would still be there now.

Loki jumped down from the bed with his tunic in hand. He changed quickly into the dockers and green Henley he'd worn in Sydney, one of the few things he'd purchased that appeared to be reasonably appropriate here, where everyone seemed to dress like laborers. He put away the rest of the items from his boomerang bag and when the room was entirely in order he removed the sound barrier he'd put up the night before. Even though he'd not dreamed, it had been a good decision; footsteps and the indistinct words of a conversation somewhere beyond his door immediately reached his ear.

He finished getting ready, grabbed his leather satchel, and opened the door. A bottle of water and a small plastic package were on the floor. He bent down, picked them up, inspected the plastic package closely, wrinkling his nose as he read the description. _This is her idea of a meal?_ _Little wonder these people lead such short lives_. He took the items into his room and deposited them on his desk. A smile broke out on his face, and remained there as he left his room again and started down the corridor, staring at the closed door two rooms down.

/

* * *

/

Jane took a seat in the galley with cup of coffee, a bottle of water, and a bowl of oatmeal and raisins. She was one of the first arrivals, but Rodrigo from communications was already there and called her over to join him. Jane was happy for the familiar face but the smile was a bit of an effort.

"Rough first night?" he asked.

She grimaced. "I didn't sleep much."

"It's normal. It's the altitude."

"And my fingers and toes are tingly from the meds and I swear my lips are kind of numb." She took a bite of the oatmeal. "And this tastes weird."

"Could be the oatmeal, but probably just the Diamox. I skipped it this year. Doesn't hurt to go see the doc just in case."

Jane nodded. "Yeah, okay. So how about you? Are you feeling the altitude?"

Rodrigo shrugged, swallowed a bite of scrambled eggs. "Not too much. I slept pretty good, just not long enough. I've got to get on the TDRS satellite schedule. Very early mornings at the moment. This is brunch for me," he said, stabbing at another bite of eggs.

Satellite access meant internet access, so Jane took the opportunity to learn more about the two satellites the South Pole relied on for most of its communication with the outside world. Currently there was no connection in the late afternoon or evening, so early morning would be the best time for her to get online.

The galley was filling up, and Jane noticed Lucas taking a seat at one of the few remaining unoccupied tables, a small round one with four chairs. He hadn't touched the water and energy bar she'd left by his door, she'd noticed both times when she got up in the night to go to the bathroom and again when she got up in the morning. His back was to her now, but he had to have seen her as he entered the galley, and she and Rodrigo also had two empty chairs still at their table, not so far away. When she got the chance, she excused herself, explaining that she needed to talk to Lucas. She carried her tray around the corner to dispose of the remains of her breakfast, then turned back around to Lucas's table and dropped herself into a chair with no more than a _good morning._

"Good morning," he said after swallowing a bite of buttered toast with jam.

"Did you sleep okay?"

"I did. And you?"

"Not so much. I think I've got that periodic breathing thing going on."

Lucas raised an eyebrow.

"You know, that thing you can get at altitude where you kind of skip some of your breaths when you sleep and it wakes you up. Didn't you take the online altitude class?"

"I suppose not. I'm sure I missed a number of things." He added some more jam to his toast, careful to hide his surprise at her words. Was she really in such fragile health that simply going up a little higher than normal made her unable to breathe normally? He wondered if only she had that problem or if all the mortals were so susceptible to heights.

"Hm. Well, _we_ have some catching up to do," Jane said, folding her hands together over the top of the table.

"Do we?" He glanced up from his toast briefly, then turned his attention back to the plate.

Jane frowned. His words were dismissive but his tone simply disinterested. Part of her wanted to get angry, but she recognized what he was doing. _For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction; the forces of two bodies on each other are always equal and are directed in opposite directions._ Newton's third law of motion. More loosely put, he was dishing out to her exactly what she'd dished out to him.

"Yeah, we do. If you're going to be my assistant, I need to fill you in on what I plan to work on here."

"Since you've already very clearly informed me you don't _need_ an assistant, I thought it would be best if I pursued something on my own."

"Oh, come on, Lucas," Jane said in exasperation. "Can you please just try to forget I ever said all that? It had nothing to do with you, I promise. It had nothing to do with whether I needed an assistant or not. What I didn't need" – she glanced around and lowered her voice before continuing – "was a SHIELD plant following me around. So if you aren't that-"

"I'm not," he said emphatically. "I thought we'd already established that."

"Then…" Jane paused, swallowed, suddenly realizing this felt a lot like begging and she wasn't especially fond of begging. "I'd love for you to be my assistant."

He swallowed the last of his toast, took a drink of water. "I don't know how we can work together if you don't trust me." She had his full attention now.

"I don't even _know_ you," she said, struggling to keep her voice level. Newton's third law. One rejection of her for every rejection of him. She wondered if he'd kept count. But this couldn't go on indefinitely; Jane had come here to work, not to play games. "Do _you_ trust _me_?"

Lucas narrowed his eyes at her. At last a question he didn't seem to have a prepared answer for. "Touché," he said after a moment. He returned his attention to his breakfast.

"Okay…so…maybe we should get to know each other, huh? One step at a time. We've still got" – she paused to glance up at the screen hanging from the ceiling – "about an hour before our meeting with the winter site manager. Let's get started."

"All right."

"So, uh…" _Wow, this is awkward. What do you already know…_ "You're Canadian?"

"Mmm," he breathed, glancing up as a group of men in boisterous laughter walked past them, heading into the galley.

Jane waited a moment, but apparently "mmm" was all he had to say on the matter. It could have meant _yes_ or it could have meant _none of your business_. "One summer when I was in college a couple of friends and I went on a road trip up to Vancouver. It's the only time I've ever gone to Canada. You ever been? To Vancouver?"

Not even an "mmm" this time. She was just starting to curse Newton's third law when he spoke.

"Why don't you tell me about your project here? _That's _the first step. Not geography."

Jane blinked heavily. Either he had a dry and rather odd sense of humor or he'd just insulted her. "Okaaaay. Well, this is going to sound crazy, but-"

"_That's_ never a good way to begin a presentation."

Eyes widening and face flushing, Jane clenched her jaw as she held back a sharp retort that was bubbling up inside her – her patience had its limits and Lucas had pretty much just reached them.

But his dispassionate face eased into a smile that could almost pass for charming if Jane hadn't been so annoyed at him. "I apologize. I went too far."

Jane took a deep breath and let her anger dissipate with her exhale.

"But it's true, is it not?"

"Will you just let me do this? I _have_ presented my work before, you know."

She expected something like _okay, go ahead_.

Instead, Lucas said, "And I noticed you didn't begin your dissertation with 'This is going to sound crazy.'"

Jane rubbed her brow, and when she took her hand away she fell into light laughter, unable to pinpoint when her irritation had morphed into amusement, when she had realized his comments were indeed intended as droll humor, or at least when she had decided to interpret them as such. She began to relax. "That would have been redundant. My whole committee already thought it was crazy."

"And yet you persevered."

She watched him watching her, his expression unchanged from when he'd first begun to smile. Her laughter faded. "I've had practice."

/

* * *

/

Loki waited expectantly, ready to hear all about the travails of poor Jane Foster. He already knew of them, most of them anyway, through Erik Selvig, and they evoked little sympathy in him. Her trials were insignificant, and typical of her people. She knew nothing of true suffering. Of true loss. She had lost people she loved who were destined to die in a few short more years anyway; she had lost the respect of colleagues in her profession. He had lost everything he'd ever held dear, everything he'd loved and everything he'd desired love from in return. He'd lost himself. In losing those things he'd gained others, but that did not matter at this moment. Not when he was prepared yet again to offer that compassion and understanding his mother spoke of – though she'd probably intended for it to be offered with a bit more sincerity. But again he did not have the opportunity.

Instead of travails and perseverance, Jane spun a tale that began with her unorthodox beliefs about wormholes and dark energy and exotic matter with negative mass and quickly led to the arrival outside the little New Mexico town she'd been living in of travelers from another world. She never mentioned _his_ name, only the data she'd been able to gather through her makeshift equipment when he arrived, and how _his_ arrival was physical proof that Einstein's and Rosen's early theory on tube-like curvatures through space, what later came to be known as wormholes, was essentially correct. To her question he acknowledged that, yes, he had heard something about those events in New Mexico but hadn't been sure what was true and what was not; she'd helpfully explained that SHIELD had initially tried to cover it up, but when monsters started pouring from a giant hole in the sky over Manhattan they'd given up trying to portray the Puente Antiguo stories as a hoax. To his question she confirmed that it was because of New Mexico that she'd gotten involved with SHIELD, though she did not offer any further details.

The story quickly turned back to the data from _his_ appearance and SHIELD's data from the others' appearance – Loki wondered if among "the others" was included the Destroyer he'd sent to stop Thor; what an ironic little twist of fate that would be. She'd put all her time and effort since then into analyzing this data and whatever data she'd been able to obtain from other projects, including those at the South Pole, because proof of the reality of wormholes didn't mean she could precisely quantify how one was formed. A key component of her working theory on this, and apparently a number of her other theories, was that neutrinos had mass while the Standard Theory of particle physics assumed they did not, and that although they passed harmlessly through matter, they did interact with the unidentified subatomic particles that composed dark matter.

As she went on and grew more wrapped up in her story and less self-conscious in the telling of it, she spoke with such conviction and even passion that Loki couldn't help being drawn in, and not solely for selfish reasons. There was a single-minded purity in her zeal for knowledge that he found engaging, that even reminded him faintly of himself in times past. He saw this even more in the exclamation point to her story thus far, told with enthusiasm for the discovery rather than ego for having been right – recent data gathered at the South Pole had confirmed that neutrinos did have mass as Jane and others had come to believe, and led to approximations of that mass that were precisely in line with her predictions.

Jane had begun working to characterize those subatomic particles believed to make up dark matter, and hoped to find evidence to expand that work through the use of the world-class telescopes and sensors here and the specialized equipment she had designed herself and had shipped. The bridge from another realm – she was careful not to refer to it as the bifrost – had proven that stable wormholes through which people could safely travel were possible, and she was determined to figure out how.

Loki continued to listen with great interest although there were still large gaps in his mapping of her terms to his understanding_. _As he filed these terms away to look up at his first opportunity, he waited for mention of the tesseract, but it did not come. What arrived through the bifrost in New Mexico was infinitesimal compared to what arrived through the portal opened by the tesseract in New York, and the ratio of the availability of those "readings" she was so fond of was surely similar between the two locations. Of course, it was possible that he'd kept SHIELD too busy for readings. Or that the tesseract worked on entirely different principles than the bifrost. Loki had felt its power, its pull, had even drawn on that power through the scepter, but had never really controlled it. Erik Selvig, if he remembered anything from that time, would have a better technical understanding of it. And all Selvig had really done was find a Midgardian technological means to focus and sustain its energy, to turn it into a door that need only be nudged and held gently open from its own side instead of one that must be repeatedly splintered with a heavy fist from the other; Loki had not enjoyed being the knuckles of that fist.

The story appeared to have drawn to a close, and still there was no mention of travel via the tesseract, or of the other question that had occurred to him about halfway through her story. The tesseract he was best off not inquiring about even obliquely. Although he had muddied her memories of him, these types of surface-level manipulations were the extent of his abilities without the scepter; he couldn't be certain whether that manipulation would hold if she were to actively think and talk about him as his true self while looking at and talking to him as Lucas.

There was, however, no reason he couldn't ask the second question.

"Do you intend to build one?"

"One what?"

"An Einstein-Rosen bridge. A wormhole."

/

* * *

/

Jane coughed, choking on the water she'd been drinking and sputtering some out. She grabbed a napkin from his tray and wiped her mouth with it. "Uh, no, um…no. _Build_ an Einstein-Rosen bridge? It's not something you can just _build_, I mean…maybe in- maybe in that place where those other people came from they can build things like that. But here… No. We don't have the technology for that. We don't understand the _science_ for that yet."

"But you're close, aren't you? You've said as much. I'm surprised that you'd dismiss the idea outright. Isn't that what others have done to your ideas throughout your career? Dismissed them without properly considering them because they challenged assumptions about what could and couldn't be true? What could and couldn't be done?"

Jane let out a slow breath she'd been holding almost as soon as he'd begun to speak again. "But…" And then her mind was whirling with ideas. With possibilities. If she could identify and properly characterize all of the particles involved in the formation of a wormhole as well as their interactions, then she could formulate new equations. If she could formulate new equations, and she had sufficient power and computing capacity, and if she could jerry-rig her signal collector or maybe something more powerful…it was a lot of if's. But most importantly you had to understand something before you could program a machine to produce it. You had to know what _it_ was. She _was_ close to that…maybe.

Her eyes suddenly regained focus and fell on Lucas's face. His gaze was impassive and felt heavy, as though he were not just watching but assessing. "Are you trying to make fun of me?" she asked, frowning. If so, this was going to get ugly. For him.

"No. I'm challenging your assumptions."

She nodded, slowly. "Okay. That's good. I like that. But" – she glanced up at the screen hanging from the ceiling again – "I'm not here to try to build some kind of wormhole generator. Okay?"

Lucas inclined his head in silent agreement.

It was good enough for her. "You done? We need to get to our appointment."

* * *

/

_Teasers for Chapter 13 (still unnamed, possibly "Theories") - Things on Asgard are getting complicated; Jane starts to feel a bit more comfortable around "Lucas"; Loki reminds us he's capable of a fair amount of mischief even without using magic._

_And excerpt:_

Loki looked at his left hand, turned it from side to side. Though he'd experienced that metamorphosis more fully later, when handling the ice casket, this hand and forearm in impossible unnatural horrifying creeping blue would always be his most visceral image of the other him, the him that lay beneath all the other layers and facades. He should thrive in this environment, the one of endless snow and ice and, eventually, perpetual darkness that lay just beyond these walls.

_(Let me just add that it's all about context, and it's definitely lacking here. But I'll just say that he is most definitely *not* blue in this scene.)_


	14. (13) Theories

_Sipping Sturm, eating Topfelstrudl, publishing fanfiction. Not bad for an evening in._

_In this chapter, Thor gets some worrying news, Loki takes advantage of his earlier access to Jane's laptop, Jane worries about the direction a conversation turns, and ninepen predicts you will be running a Google search as or after you read this chapter. ;-)_

/

* * *

**Beneath**

Chapter Thirteen – Theories

"Heimdall requests your presence, my prince," the gold- and black-clad Einherjar guard announced once the striking of his staff against the floor brought the council chambers to silence. Volstagg's mouth was still hanging open, mid-sentence.

Thor rose. His face remained impassive – or he hoped it did – but silently he asked, _What now?_ "Volstagg, Bragi, come with me."

Volstagg fell in on his left and Bragi on his right, and they had not yet left the room when Volstagg resumed his argument. It was a classic conflict, and one which until recently Thor would have had no trouble coming to a decision on – he would have ignored them both and rushed into a confrontation, prepared for battle should it not go well. Just like on Jotunheim. Precisely what had set off the chain of events leading to these tense circumstances in the first place.

Volstagg, urging strengthened physical defenses and expanded protection enchantments, and Bragi, urging only a continuation of the increased training tempo for Asgard's warriors so as not to appear to be preparing for war, fell silent again as the three came to a halt before Heimdall, outside the makeshift observatory near the still-lifeless bifrost.

"What news have you, Gatekeeper?" Thor asked.

"My prince, the delegation from Svartalfheim has left Jotunheim."

"And what were you able to learn of their purpose?" The question pre-supposed that Heimdall had been able to learn _something_, but Thor knew well it was little more than wishful thinking.

"Nothing, my prince. I have seen their meetings and gatherings but I cannot hear their discussions. I remain uncertain of the nature of the magic involved."

Thor nodded. He wasn't surprised. "Thank you, Heimdall. And-"

"There is more."

"Yes?" he asked with raised eyebrows and a sliver of hope. And a sliver of dread.

"The delegation did not return to Svartalfheim. They have instead travelled to Vanaheim."

"Vanaheim! Why would they go to Vanaheim?" Volstagg asked. Bragi, Thor saw when he glanced his way, seemed to have paled beneath his long beard.

"I do not know. They have been greeted, and are being led before Gullveig. It is as on Jotunheim; I can see but not hear."

"What is it, Bragi? Say what you're thinking." The old man's eyes had narrowed and his gaze had drifted to the side.

"That would be impolite, my prince."

Thor glared down at his chief diplomatic advisor. Few could withstand that glare, and Bragi wasn't one of them.

"It is too soon to say. It could be anything. The Frost Giants have no means to leave their realm, that much we know. And what little else they had was severely damaged by- Perhaps they merely seek assistance from the other realms to make repairs. They may have asked the elves to visit Vanaheim on their behalf. They would not reach out to us; they will have recognized that it was the bifrost that wrought this destruction. Vanaheim has the means to assist and Jotunheim lacks the same animosity for Vanaheim that it has for us."

"Or?" Thor asked. This was the optimistic view, not the one that made Bragi pale. Not the one that made Thor flush with anticipation for battle.

"Or Jotunheim and Svartalfheim are looking for more allies," Volstagg said.

"If so, they will not find them in Vanaheim, will they?" Thor asked – stated, really – turning back to Bragi.

"The Vanir are _our_ allies. They live among us and we among them."

"Bragi…" Thor warned in a low voice. Bragi did not like saying unpleasant things, and Thor did not like having to drag out of him the unpleasant things he was clearly thinking.

"My prince…it's unfortunate but true that the Jotuns have a story to tell that paints us in a rather bad light. They do not know exactly what transpired here, though they may know that Prince Loki brought their king to Asgard. Whatever they know of Laufey's actions, they know he did not return to them. They do not know that it was Loki who wrought their destruction of his own accord with no sanction from the All-Father or yourself or anyone else. It is possible that the delegation goes to Vanaheim to convey a saga of a spiteful, cruel, and unjust Asgard that these many years later has a renewed desire to end Jotunheim's very existence."

"How will we know which it is?"

Bragi shook his head. "I do not see how we possibly can, as things are now. And it is not just these two possibilities. The dark elves' travel may have nothing to do with us, nothing to do with the destruction on Jotunheim."

"Then why would they conceal their speech?"

Bragi opened his mouth, then closed it again; he had no immediate answer.

"We must journey to Vanaheim, Thor. Meet with King Gullveig. Asking is the only way to know which theory is correct. Gullveig has always been fond of you; he will answer."

Thor nodded to Volstagg. He was right. But could he risk leaving Asgard with his father still in the Odinsleep? _No_, he quickly decided. He could wait at least until the delegation left Vanaheim, and Odin should wake soon.

He turned back in the direction of the palace, stopping after a few steps. He'd almost forgotten. "Go on ahead, I'll just be a moment. Bragi, fill the council in fully, and I'll want to know if this changes either of your opinions on how we should be preparing."

Both men pressed fist to chest and lowered their heads before continuing on their way.

"Heimdall…Jane?"

"I see her less often when I seek her," the gatekeeper said, having waited in still, stoic silence. "Yesterday, only once."

"And now?"

He paused for a long moment, shifting his gaze from Vanaheim to Midgard and searching for the mortal woman. "No, my prince."

"And you still do not know why?"

"I do not."

Thor worked his jaw, frowning. Jane would be working with her machines. Her technology, her science. Her version of magic. Things she had built with her own hands, things that sought the stars. Heimdall had not thought likely Jane's idea about being hidden from being in the sky instead of on the ground. Could her machines hide her? It also seemed unlikely, but he didn't know. And it worried him that he didn't know. There was more than one way to be hidden from Heimdall's view, but only one he was familiar with – only one that worried him.

"You still have not seen Loki?"

"I have not."

"And Jane remains unconcerned."

"I would have informed you had that changed."

"I know, I apologize," Thor said, accepting the rebuke. Anything other than a direct response, from Heimdall, was a clear rebuke.

"There is no need to apologize. Thor…"

Thor drew himself up to attention. Heimdall had not addressed him by his given name since childhood. "Yes?"

"You may continue to ask after her as often as you wish, and I can continue to look for her. Whatever you seek I will not deny, unless the All-Father forbids it. But…I have not seen any cause to doubt that she is safe."

It took a moment, but Thor swallowed and answered. "And Asgard is in peril, with events in three other realms in question. I understand." He paused, nodded. "I understand. I shouldn't have interfered with your duty. Please indulge my occasional inquiry, but in the meantime, keep your gaze upon the delegation and the three realms and any other source of trouble should it appear."

Heimdall bowed his head, but kept his eyes locked on Thor's.

Thor nodded again, then turned to follow Volstagg and Bragi, jaw clenched tight. _So this is what it feels like to be king_, he thought, and could hardly imagine how much he'd once desired it.

/

* * *

/

During their morning meeting with the winter site manager Jane, Lucas, Rodrigo, and Gillian were reminded of some of the station's rules – particularly fire safety – and were assigned to emergency response teams. Every winterover was on one; if an emergency happened no rescue would be forthcoming, it would be up to them. Jane was put on the fire team and Lucas, who'd not had any fire response training, on trauma. They learned that their doctor was still to arrive on one last passenger flight – a last-minute replacement for the doctor who should've arrived a week ago but had broken his pelvis in some kind of freak accident. Jane was surprised to learn of an additional passenger flight; she'd thought hers was the last. She mentioned that she'd hoped to see the doctor about her Diamox side effects, and was assured that a summer doctor was still here as well as a physician's assistant.

A couple of hours before the lunch Jane had scheduled for her and Lucas with Selby and Wright, she offered to give Lucas the tour of the station she'd had the evening before. It would be a good refresher for her, she figured, and indeed found herself relying heavily on the labels found on most of the doors, which Lucas could have just as well read on his own. But she tried to add in little bits of information she'd learned on her own tour, deliberately leaving out only the 300 Club that Wright had relished describing even though it was too early for him to have had a chance to join. Lucas would have to find out about that one elsewhere.

"What do you like to read, Jane?" Lucas asked when they entered the "Quiet Reading" room with its collection – impressively large given the location – housed on tall black metal bookshelves and its hodgepodge of yellow, blue, and gray chairs.

"Well, assuming you mean non-work-related stuff, I guess you could say I like to keep it light. Murder mysteries, romances, science fiction, sometimes just stuff that makes me laugh."

"You find murder mysteries light?" he asked, again in that tone that left her not entirely sure whether he was poking fun or indulging in dry humor.

"They're pretty much guaranteed not to have any complex mathematical equations or Greek letters in them, so yeah. In case you were wondering, yes, that does rule out any murder mysteries in sorority houses," she said with a grin.

He didn't return the smile but instead glanced around the room; Jane was certain he was avoiding her eyes. She grimaced, wondering if she'd touched some unexpectedly raw nerve – maybe he had a sister in a sorority and didn't appreciate the flippant joke. Her sense of humor had always been a little on the goofy side, but she was pretty sure any of her physicist friends would have laughed at least a little bit at that, no matter how lame it was.

"Okay, moving on," she said awkwardly, and he fell back into place by her side; they paused inside the laundry room; there wasn't much to say about it. It was a laundry room. Washers and dryers and big boxes of powdered soap. And they'd already been told they could only do one cold-water load of laundry per week. "So what about you? What do you like to read?"

"Me?" He smiled. "Oh, ancient history, philosophy. Cultural anthropology. If you mean non-work-related."

"Oh," Jane said with a slow nod and slightly widened eyes. _Romances_ now sounded a little more embarrassing than when she'd actually said it. The truth was she curled up with a scientific journal and a notepad and pencil more often than a murder mystery or romance, but geeking out was reserved for friends. In any event, when she really wanted to take a break and escape from a particularly bothersome problem for a while it _was_ one of those grocery store paperbacks she'd turn to instead of a journal. Though even then there was always a pencil nearby to scribble in the margins in case the distraction ironically allowed the solution to surface.

"My mom was an anthropologist," she said, more to break what was for her at least another awkward moment than out of any desire to actually talk about personal stuff.

"Oh? You've travelled far from her footsteps."

Jane laughed lightly. "That's true. I wound up more in my dad's footsteps. He was a physicist."

"I see," he said with a slight upward nod.

"Okay, well, let's keep this show moving, huh?"

/

* * *

/

The tour over, Jane led Loki back to where their luggage from the plane's cargo had been left; only his single suitcase and two other orange bags from the CDC remained. Loki eyed them for a moment. With Jane at his side he would have to physically carry them to his room. Where was Wright when you needed him?

"Here, let me get one of those," Jane offered, reaching for the suitcase.

"No, I've got it," he said, placing himself between her and the suitcase and taking it in one hand and the orange bags together in the other. Wright carrying his bags was one thing, Jane Foster another entirely. Besides, he'd noticed how she'd breathed heavily when they went up the stairs to the second level; she might have collapsed if she tried to carry a suitcase. Her injuring herself would not be helpful.

"Okay, well…so I guess you're all set, then? I know after lunch Selby and Wright will show us around the Science Lab, and then I guess we'll go out to the Dark Sector Lab and we can start getting set up for work. I want to meet the Ice Cube team, and everybody else here on the dark sector projects. I want a plan of action in place by tomorrow so we don't waste any time. Nine months seems like a long time but I think it's going to fly by."

"Time is relative," Loki said. Nine months didn't seem like very long to him at all. And he would also rather not waste any of that short time.

But Jane inexplicably broke into light laughter. "Einstein jokes. Okay, this might just work out after all. Come on, we've still got some time before lunch. The satellite's up so I want to check my e-mail, and you can put that stuff away. Did you really only bring one suitcase?"

"Mm," he murmured, and she didn't seem intent on pressing him further; she'd already seen him with one suitcase so he wasn't sure why it occurred to her to ask about it now. Probably just an off-hand remark. And another thing to look up, _Einstein_. He recalled the name from a brief mention in the physics book he'd read the first couple of chapters of, apparently a key figure in the development of the current understanding of science here. Still, despite the gaps in his knowledge and his initial mishandling of their meeting, things were already working out very well indeed, if even his attempts at minimalist communication elicited friendly laughter.

A few minutes later they were back in the A1 berthing wing, Jane in front of her door and Loki in front of his. He had just set his luggage down in the room when he heard a knock. He went over to open the door and saw Jane's diminutive form. Although there was no one else it logically could have been so soon after they parted, still he was surprised.

"Hey, Lucas, sorry, I just…could you help me out with something? It'll just take a minute.'

"Yes, of course," Loki said after the briefest of hesitations. _This_ Lucas was much easier to embody, but Loki now struggled to keep his expression neutral. Lucas should not be nearly this pleased.

He followed her the few steps over to her room and past the threshold. His eyes widened. Her belongings were scattered over the room; only the unmade bed was clear of what to him looked almost like debris after a battle.

"Oh, sorry, don't mind this, I haven't finished putting everything away."

"Is that what you needed my help with?" he asked, hoping the answer was _no_ while trying to decide how to respond if it were _yes_. He could live with being an assistant, but he didn't think _assisting_ should extend to duties carried out by servants on Asgard. He had an image to maintain – _above and not beneath_ – and a self-image that simmered and flared beneath that one – _I am a king_! Both led him to the same answer in no more than a second.

He was relieved by her laughter. "Uh, no. Actually, I got this poster in the mail here," she said, stepping over to her desk which seemed to function primarily as open-air storage for clothing, "and I want to put it up on the wall above the desk but I need you to hold it on one end while I take care of the other."

She showed him what to do, then tossed a pile of shirts from the desk to the bed and climbed up onto the desk while Loki watched in mild amusement. She was probably accustomed to scrambling up furniture to reach the things she needed. He followed her lead, unrolling the poster and stepping back until he stood against the wall. She taped her end, then got down to check that the poster was level, and upon deciding that it was she tossed him the tape and he fastened his end to the wall in the same manner she had.

She stepped back and examined the poster. "Perfect," she declared with a big smile.

"What is it?" Loki asked, moving away from the wall to stand beside her.

"It's…well, it's from a friend. Or, acquaintance, I guess. Tony Stark?"

Loki froze. She was waiting. Her intonation was that of a question. She was asking. But he wasn't sure _what_ she was asking. And then he remembered; Lucas should know that name from an entirely different context than he himself did. "The man behind the Stark Institute for Scientific Innovation? He's your friend?"

"Not really. I mean, I haven't actually met him in person. We have a mutual friend. And he believes in my work. You'd like him; he's all about challenging assumptions."

Loki nodded, not trusting himself to utter a word. He had decidedly _not_ liked that man, the most arrogant of that little band of "avengers" – which was after all saying quite a lot – the one who'd spat out childish insults even as the scepter was pointed at his chest. He wouldn't mind meeting him again someday, though…absent Odin's curses.

"Anyway, it's the view from a house he owns in Malibu. Hey, you don't get out much, huh? Tony's famous. SISI's brand new."

"I've heard the name," Loki allowed.

"Okay, well, I better get to my e-mail before we lose the satellite. Thanks for your help."

She'd said _Thanks for your help_, Loki heard _You're dismissed._ It rankled him, but he merely nodded, adding, "You're welcome."

/

* * *

/

Alone in her room again, Jane took another long look at the poster – _how did he know exactly what size to make it?_ – then sat down at her desk. Checking her e-mail, it turned out, didn't take long, since she didn't have any. Jane was disappointed, particularly since she probably wouldn't have another chance to check it again before the satellite went down for the day and they lost their limited connectivity.

She decided to use the time she'd expected to spend reading and answering e-mails by stopping in to see the doc, since all those symptoms were still there. Most annoying was the tingling – it felt like her fingers and toes were constantly just being woken. Dr. Brissett, who was rather harried and explained that he was trying to write down everything he would have told and shown his replacement in person were it not for the last-minute substitute flying in on the same flight he himself would be flying out on, assured her the tingling and numbness were symptoms of the Diamox. He considered taking her off it early when Jane asked if the medicine's efficacy was really worth all the annoyances, noting that she was experiencing more of the possible side effects than most, but when he checked her blood pressure and found both pressure and pulse high he insisted she stay on it.

"I know it's unpleasant, but let it do its job. And I want you to come in here every day for a blood pressure check, around noon, let's say?"

"Okay. You don't think this is…that I'm having a really bad reaction to the altitude, do you?" Jane asked, trying to mask her fear. Acute mountain sickness, if it got worse, would result in a swift evacuation.

"There's no reason to think that at this point. AMS symptoms are pretty common here but it usually resolves itself within a week. Double up on the water, see if that gets rid of the headache. And no exertion. No alcohol, no coffee, watch your salt intake. Take it easy the next week, no exercise, then we can reassess. Or Dr. Ellison can reassess. Don't go out today."

"But I was-"

"I know, you want to get out to the dark sector. It doesn't look very far but you'd be surprised how much energy it takes out of you to walk the half mile out to those buildings. You just got here, give your body another day to get used to it."

Jane sighed and acquiesced. It was in her nature to push boundaries, but pushing this particular boundary could put her on a paratrooper jump seat next to Dr. Brissett. Or worse. The dark sector could wait another day.

/

* * *

/

Prompted by Jane's comment, Loki sat in the computer lab next to medical and worked through his backlog of e-mails, all of which were addressed either to or from Jane Foster. It was tedious and engaging all at once. He should have just scanned for the keywords that would require action on his part, words such as _assistant_ and _Lucas_ and _Loki_, but he found himself doing something in between a thorough read and a quick skim of every e-mail – incoming, outgoing, and the archives since the account had been created, about three weeks ago.

The words – in both their presence and their absence – provided a fascinating glimpse into Jane's thoughts. No mention of SHIELD at all, and yet he knew it to be frequently on her mind. Was she barred from mentioning them? Or afraid they were reading her e-mails? She was certainly paranoid. The thought made him smirk. She had reason to be paranoid. After all, _he _was reading her e-mails, and he'd used a basic, minimally protected SHIELD program to do it.

No mention of Thor, except to someone named Darcy, whom she'd told about the Tromso visit that Loki had deduced. But Jane's telling of that story included auroras and cheesecake and table manners – Loki had to roll his eyes at how amusing she seemed to find Thor's newfound ability to restrain himself from hurling a mug to the ground – and no mention of Loki himself or any other reason for Thor's visit. And yet the reason was clear. Perhaps Odin had meant what he said, about not being hunted. If that were true, then perhaps Thor had only gone to Tromso to ensure Jane was not being kidnapped or tortured by his dastardly monster of a brother. Or he may have told Jane and asked her not to tell anyone else. It would be helpful to know for certain, but there was no further e-mail evidence, and absent further evidence Loki thought the latter more likely. As he'd assumed earlier, Thor would have wanted to warn his mortal love.

Since she'd met "Lucas," she had written about Sydney and Christchurch and kayaks and sheep farms and extreme cold weather gear and McMurdo and Observation Hill and an intriguing line of poetry from someone named Tennyson - _To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield._ Loki's eyes lingered over the quote, over each word. Striving and seeking – yes, he knew these well. Here he would find again; he knew this even though he was still seeking, because he also knew he would never yield, to anything or anyone in the Nine Realms or beyond. He added Tennyson to his ever-growing list of things to look into later. It wasn't entirely out of the realm of possibility that a few mortals had interesting things to say.

There was no mention of him at all – perhaps because she'd thought him a minion of SHIELD? – and nothing of concern in her incoming mail either. He approved the incoming and outgoing mail, sending the incoming ones to Jane's account and the outgoing ones to their intended recipients. Logging out of his account, he permitted himself a self-satisfied smile at this particular bit of cleverness. SHIELD or Tony Stark's SISI getting word of an assistant they had not in fact sent to Jane would have unnecessarily complicated matters – Loki was fully aware but could not fully acknowledge even to himself that it would more than likely have thoroughly _ruined_ matters given the restrictions Odin had placed upon him.

For the first time Loki wondered if any intervention at all at the South Pole would be possible once winter settled in, if somehow he drew suspicion despite his precautions. Earth's traditional military forces would probably be helpless. He was less confident about Earth's _non_-traditional forces. Would the extreme temperatures here stop the Hulk from getting this far inland? He shuddered and hoped so. Would Tony Stark's suit of iron freeze up like the airplanes that could no longer land? Steven Rogers, should he devise some means of getting here in the first place, would freeze but apparently wake up no worse for wear once defrosted. Barton and Natasha…lovely, vile Natasha…wouldn't stand a chance, they would never even make it here. Thor might be slowed, but not stopped. But he had taken extra precautions for that, hiding himself within hours of arriving in that forest on the other end of the planet while ensuring that a carefree Jane was visible whenever she was apart from him. Outside interference should not be a problem.

Loki looked at his left hand, turned it from side to side. Though he'd experienced that metamorphosis more fully later, when handling the ice casket, this hand and forearm in impossible unnatural horrifying creeping blue would always be his most visceral image of the other him, the him that lay beneath all the other layers and facades. He should thrive in this environment, the one of endless snow and ice and, eventually, perpetual darkness that lay just beyond these walls.

Time would tell. But he rather thought he dreaded it.

/

* * *

/

During lunch Loki listened intently as Wright, who had spent the short summer season here as well, discussed the South Pole Telescope or SPT, a ten-meter diameter telescope through which scientists sought to observe and measure the Cosmic Microwave Background and through it other things such as galaxy clusters, dark energy, and neutrinos. Loki filed all the terms away, his interest particularly piqued by "dark energy," which Jane had also mentioned and which reminded him of the magic of the elves of Svartalfheim.

Jane also listened with rapt attention, interjecting questions frequently. The Ice Cube telescope came up a number of times when Jane asked about the neutrinos she was so fascinated by; apparently this telescope was somehow buried in the ice, which seemed a rather odd design for a telescope. They would get a fuller explanation of it later that day when they met the two people working on Ice Cube.

Loki's hopes grew even as he increasingly recognized the challenge ahead of him. Reading a book, he realized, may not be enough to bridge the enormity of the gap. How much easier it would be if these scientists were not so obsessed with numbers and names and could simply see and touch and manipulate. When he had studied the workings of the universe he simply toyed with those workings until he understood them.

Momentarily distracted by centuries-old memories of those lessons and the eagerness he'd had for them, Loki's attention was drawn back to Selby when he pulled a photograph from his wallet and held it out. Jane took it, and held it so Loki could see. The small, poor-quality photo was of Selby and a woman with long blond hair in ringlets, smiling and resting her head on Selby's shoulder, his arm around her back.

"This was about a week before the wedding."

"She's beautiful," Jane said.

Loki nodded his head and murmured his polite agreement.

Selby smiled; Loki thought he looked a little embarrassed. "Yeah."

Wright rolled his eyes. "Don't get him started. He won't shut up about her. 'I was just a lonely nerd and she was the prom queen and-'"

"She wasn't the prom queen."

"No?"

"Homecoming queen," Selby corrected with a small smile.

Loki saw pride and insecurity competing behind that smile.

Wright continued his good-natured teasing until Jane asked if he had photos from the wedding. "Hold that thought. Wait until you see his desk in the Science Lab."

"I'd rather look at her all day than you," Selby said, making Jane laugh.

"You've got me there. I'd rather look at her all day than you, too."

Selby laughed, but his cheeks colored a little.

"It must be difficult."

All eyes turned to Loki, who'd said next to nothing throughout lunch.

"Being so far away, for so long, from a new young bride. You aren't worried?" He tacked on a smile and a lighthearted laugh to soften the words.

Selby returned the laughter. "No. She should be worried about me. What happens at the South Pole stays at the South Pole, isn't that what you said?" he asked, turning to Wright.

"Sure. Unless it happens to get mentioned on our blog."

"Oh, come on, cut it out. I can't wait to see the pictures," Jane said.

Loki let the rest of the inconsequential conversation roll over him and in a few minutes they were up and dropping off their trays, headed to the Science Lab where Loki was no longer certain if they were going to talk about science or look at wedding pictures. He suspected either would be dull – they apparently weren't going to be talking about _Jane's_ science – but he had a spring in his step and smile on his face regardless.

His manipulation of Jane was business. There was no reason business had to preclude pleasure, but ultimately he wouldn't be doing it for fun. If he was going to be forced to tolerate these others, however, there was no reason he couldn't have a bit of fun with them. There was no surprise in Selby's reaction to his question. Hesitation covered with laughter and a joke that both rang false to Loki's practiced ears, but no surprise. He _was_ worried. It might be entertaining to make him _more_ worried.

/

* * *

/

In the B2 wing Science Lab, Jane and Lucas were given desks with computers linked in to the various data feeds from the dark sector and introduced to the Ice Cube and other science techs; each team gave them a run-down of the ongoing projects they were making sure ran smoothly over the course of the long winter.

Wright then said he was going to head out to the Dark Sector Lab and asked if they wanted to go out and see the SPT and connected Dark Sector Lab next.

Jane grimaced. "Dr. Brissett told me not to until tomorrow. Altitude symptoms."

"No problem, it'll still be there tomorrow. Lucas, you want to go?"

He raised his eyebrows, took a sideways glance toward Jane. "No, I'll wait until tomorrow, too."

Jane hid her pleasure at the answer. It didn't seem exactly fair for her assistant to get to be the kid in the candy store before she did. "Hey, by the way, is my equipment in here?"

Selby shook his head as Wright left the room. "We already took it out to the DSL. We assumed that was where you'd want it."

"Yeah, I think so. Thanks."

Lucas cleared his throat. "Jane, if you don't think you'll be requiring my _assistance_" – she couldn't help noticing the slight emphasis he put on the word – "for the rest of the day, I'd like to go take care of a few things so I'll be ready to get to work tomorrow."

"Sure, I think we're basically done here, right?"

"Until we get outside so you can get your own things set up, I think so. You're welcome to start looking through the existing data now if you want, of course," Selby said.

"See you tomorrow, then, Jane?" Lucas asked.

"Or maybe at dinner."

He nodded his head and turned to go.

Jane then asked to see Selby's wedding photos, but after seeing the framed one on his desk she spotted something else and forgot about the rest. "You went to Caltech?" she asked, pointing at his logoed mug.

He nodded.

"Me too, grad school."

"Same here. Actually, I met you once. You wouldn't remember me, I was in my first year and you were already through with your coursework, I think. It was for Dr. Boudreau's retirement."

Jane stared hard at Selby but couldn't place the name or the face outside of the South Pole. "Sorry, yeah, I remember going to her retirement but I don't remember meeting you. I guess it's been a while, and I'm sure I was distracted. I usually was. Still am," she said with a laugh.

Selby smiled, but something uncomfortable crept into the smile. Jane hoped he hadn't taken offense that she didn't remember him.

"So…do you miss it? I had a lot of frustration there, committee issues, but there were a lot of good times, too. It's such a crazy campus."

He didn't answer immediately, and when he did, it wasn't an answer at all. "Jane…can we go somewhere and talk? In private?" he asked in a lowered voice. He glanced around, but a flimsy partition kept them out of anyone else's view if not out of hearing range.

"A…About Caltech?" Jane asked hopefully, eyebrows raised as her stomach sank.

"Uh…no. About…other things. The things you want to work on here. And…New Mexico. And New York. And other places further away."

* * *

/

_Dear readers, you, like Loki, will have to find out on your own about the 300 Club._

_Teasers for next chapter: Jane wonders if she's stepped into the role of a stereotypical victim in a South Pole horror movie, Loki studies Midgardian science and evaluates his options, and there is some heart and soul...but probably not the kind you're thinking of._

And the excerpt: But, he reminded himself, his smile settling into one of determination and the mischief that Odin sought to rid him of, all of this was contingent upon a functioning Midgardian bifrost. And that was contingent upon Jane, who knew not only Midgardian science but also Midgardian technology. His plans had changed, but Jane was still the key. Keys needed to be shaped to properly do their jobs.

_As a big picture teaser, because it is becoming harder and harder for me to keep a lid on it, the main "plot" (you know, beyond Loki-and-Jane-go-to-the-Pole) is actually already underway…you just don't know it yet. Neither does Jane. And neither does Loki. And I'm pretty sure I can guarantee you it's nothing you've guessed._

_Please review, I so love hearing from you!  
_


	15. (14) Keys

**Beneath**

Chapter Fourteen – Keys

_New Mexico and New York and places further away. Australia? Maybe Norway?_ Jane wondered as she followed Selby down the stairs and into the empty arts and crafts room. Because he couldn't _possibly_ mean Asgard-further-away. _That_ part of her life was not supposed to be following her here. _This _was supposed to be about good old-fashioned research, albeit with phenomenally high-tech equipment.

The door closed behind them and scenes from some ridiculous horror movie she'd seen years ago that took place at the South Pole suddenly flashed through her mind and it occurred to her to wonder if she should be getting scared now, like that point in pretty much any horror movie when you yell at the heroine for being stupid and going somewhere alone with the guy who just said something unexpectedly cryptic and kind of creepy…

Selby looked a little scared himself, though, and Jane tamped down rambling thoughts about horror movies, figuring evil bad guys probably didn't look scared before they went all evil bad guy on you. And those horror movie scenes didn't usually happen when model airplanes were hanging over your head and sewing machines and rolls of iridescent wrapping paper were on the shelves behind you and you were standing right next to a waist-high inflated plastic penguin.

"So, uh, what did you want to talk to me about?" she asked with a forced smile. Denial was fading fast. He knew something. The only question was how much.

He frowned, wiped his palms over his jeans. If she hadn't known – or thought she knew, at least – who he was she would have described him as shifty.

"Okay…well…it was at my bachelor party…"

Now he _really_ looked shifty, averting his eyes and rubbing his fingers against his palms. And saying unexpected things. What did New York and New Mexico and "places further away" have to do with Selby Higgins's bachelor party? "I don't follow," she finally said.

"Okay, look, I wasn't going to say anything. I mean I know all this is super secret and I'm not supposed to know anything about it. And I was just going to pretend I didn't, but then…I guess I'm not that good at keeping secrets. Or at lying. I couldn't just keep talking to you and pretending like I didn't know something that I did…you know?"

"Not really," Jane said in as a light a tone as possible. She'd seen that in a few movies, too, where the bad guy tells you he knows all your secrets so you spill them, only to find out that he knew nothing and you just gave it all away.

Selby straightened up and got some of his fidgeting under control as the conflict and unease plainly visible on his face also lessened. "A friend of mine – don't ask who because _that_ secret I've got to keep – he got really wasted at my bachelor party. He didn't even remember what he told me afterward, but I don't drink, not much anyway, and I remember everything. He said that before New York, he'd been hired on to work for this organization called SHIELD, that one there were so many whispers about afterward. He was working with a team of physicists on this hypercube they were calling a tesseract, that they thought could be a source of limitless clean energy."

Selby took a breath, and it reminded Jane to do so as well. Her eyes had widened, the skin around them pulled taut. Not talking about SHIELD had been a strong suggestion. But _tesseract_ was a word she'd been ordered never to give voice to unless reading Madeleine L'Engle's _A Wrinkle in Time_ aloud.

"He told me about the Foster Theory, and stable wormholes, and the New Mexico Incidents…and that those mythological Norse gods really exist and some of them came through a wormhole from Asgard and showed up on your doorstep."

Jane's heart skipped a beat. _Asgard_. Another word on the absolutely-not-never-ever-mention-it list.

"Well…on _a_ Jane Foster's doorstep, anyway, a Jane Foster out in the middle of nowhere doing independent research. But when I saw your name on the arrivals list, and what you were going to be researching, and how you were a little cagey about talking about it when normally you can't shut any of us up about our research interests…I knew you were _that_ Jane Foster." He stilled completely and stared at her, waiting for her to confirm it. Almost desperate for her to confirm it.

Jane wasn't quite ready for that. "And…you didn't think that sounded…I don't know…kind of crazy?"

"Are you kidding?" he said immediately, wide-eyed. "Of course I did. I thought he'd drunk so much he'd lost his grip on reality, confusing some sci-fi book with his actual life. But…when I thought about it, it all made sense, especially in the aftermath of what happened in New York. I saw the same things on TV that everybody else saw, Jane. Things coming out of the sky. And beyond that, glimpses of stars that aren't ours. A lot of us…we're in denial. We can't explain it, it doesn't fit the theory…so we ignore it. Act as though nothing ever happened. And down here…I'm the only one of the science techs that wasn't at the Pole then. I asked Wright about it once. He said the Satcom guy rigged up a radio and they listened to the equivalent of an FDR Fireside Chat when all that was going on. Later they had the internet, but..."

"I was in Norway," Jane whispered. "I stayed up all night watching it on TV." She offered him a small, tentative smile. _Confirmed_. She still wasn't quite able to say it.

He nodded. _Understood._

"Did you tell anyone else?"

"No. And I wouldn't. I mean, I understand it's national security and all. International security. And my friend could get into a lot of trouble for having told me what he did. I, uh…I grew up reading Asimov, you know? So I always wondered, I always accepted the possibility that…but Norse gods? I've been wanting to talk to someone about that for the longest time," he said, shaking his head. He was completely calm and his posture relaxed now that everything was out in the open.

"They aren't gods," Jane said. "But I can't talk about it."

"I know, but-"

"I really can't talk about it. I'm sorry. And I'm not here for any so-called Norse gods. I'm just a scientist, doing the research I've always wanted to be able to do, because I happened to be at the right time and place in New Mexico to observe something amazing. And that's all I want to be here, just a scientist. Okay?"

He nodded, but she could tell he was disappointed. "Okay. I just didn't want to have to pretend I didn't know anymore. And if you ever need any help with anything that maybe you don't want anyone else here to know about…"

Jane put a hand over his arm and gave it a quick squeeze. "Thanks, but it won't be necessary. I'm really not working on anything secret. And just so you know, Lucas doesn't even know about all that other stuff, so please don't mention it around him." Lucas who apparently had ideas even "crazier" than her own. Lucas who thought she was going to somehow recreate Asgardian magic on Earth and build her very own personal bifrost, skipping right by who-knew-how-many decades or centuries of research and development. She reminded herself to ask him what exactly he was focusing on in his studies. He seemed to have made it a point to let her do all the talking.

"Yeah, I got it. Our secret."

Jane couldn't decide if she was disappointed or relieved that someone here now shared that secret. She had been eager to forget about the stress of SHIELD and their prying eyes and control issues and to take a break from the seemingly supernatural to return to the solid ground of the natural, but it might be nice to have one person here who knew the truth.

/

* * *

/

Taking advantage of the last hour of internet connectivity for the day, Loki sat in the computer lab and approved two new e-mails to Jane, then looked up neutrinos, which led him to protons, electrons, and neutrons, and quarks. He sat back from the computer as connections fell into place. No one else was in the room – most people were still working and most had their own laptops anyway. With one final glance around him to confirm he was alone, he placed his palms close together in front of him, almost touching but not quite, fingers pointed upward. As he slowly drew his hands apart to shoulder width, a small, softly humming light appeared there.

To Loki's eyes, the light had structure, and the magnified structure caused the humming. Within the structure he saw the particles he'd read about, the particles he'd learned to manipulate early in life. He looked at them now in a new way; he'd never consciously thought about positive charges and negative charges and spin momentum and all the other characteristics Earth science ascribed to them, but he realized as he observed them with fresh eyes that he had instinctively known these things to be true, had seen and felt them. Interesting things happened when you reached out and _changed_ one or more of those characteristics.

It fascinated him to observe how what was for him so instinctive and tangible was expressed here in dry words and numbers.

He observed and manipulated for several minutes, committing those words and numbers to memory, then pushed his palms back toward each other. The light shrank and the humming ceased.

Next he wanted to look up dark matter and dark energy – Jane had used both terms and he presumed they must be distinct, but when he entered his search terms on the computer he realized the period of satellite connectivity must have passed. He glanced at the corner of the screen: 4:35, too late for any more computer searches. He still had his textbook, but the more he used the computer the more he found he preferred it when time was of the essence.

The textbook would have to do, at least until early the next morning when he could instead return to the jumbled yet exceedingly useful internet. He needed to think. Things had changed. Progressed. He needed to reassess. To plan. He needed privacy.

Back in his room, he peered out his narrow window at the snowy landscape beyond the station. Two people were outside stacking boxes. There was no other sign of life.

He pulled the shade and hoisted himself up onto the bed, pulling his legs up to sit cross-legged. He forced an unbidden recent memory sharply from his mind – Thor sitting across from him explaining his "situation" while he sat on a similar-sized bed in a similar position.

Thor no longer figured into his plans. Not for the moment, anyway. There was no need.

Still, it was important to work through all the variables again, now that things had changed. He needed to be certain he was making the right decision.

Through Jane, he could have controlled Thor. Had the Chitauri's master threatened him, he could have revealed himself to Heimdall while threatening her life, and Thor would have come running, ready and willing to do whatever Loki demanded in exchange for sparing her – relocation to another realm, protection, or perhaps, the most entertaining option, an attack supported by the very group of mortals who had risen up against him. Much less complex and much less risky, though, was the escape route conveniently provided by his mother, he thought, rubbing his right hand absently over the satchel at his side. Loki delighted in complexity and thrived on risk, but the risk of finding himself at _his_ mercy again – Loki did not even want to think his name for fear he could hear it – was not worth any cheap thrill.

And in any event, he'd been on Asgard for two weeks and Midgard for one, and the Chitauri had made no move against him, nor had anyone else who might have been sent to exact some kind of horrific retribution from him. Perhaps he was safe. After all, from _his_ perspective, what would be the point? What was done was done. He had failed. And really, it was the Chitauri who failed, not him. He had done everything he had agreed to on his side of the bargain. He gained control of the tesseract. He gained control of the Midgardians he needed to stabilize its energy and hold the portal open. It was _his_ army that had failed to do its job, _his_ mammoth spaceship that had been left vulnerable to Midgard's weapons. Why should he be held accountable for someone else's failure?

If he no longer needed Jane to ensure his protection, then, there were still other concessions he could extract from Thor with Jane under his control. When he had taunted Thor with his reference to Norway, he had also tested. He had learned that Thor also knew where Jane was, and that he intended to protect her. And now he knew that he had gone so far as to leave Asgard while Odin teetered on the brink of a long sleep, just so he could warn her about his presence. Thor would go quite far to protect his mortal woman, Loki concluded.

He tried to picture how such a scenario might work. He would have to reveal himself to Heimdall. He would threaten to kill Jane, first injuring her in some painful but non-permanent manner so that it was clear his threat was serious. Heimdall could go to Odin rather than Thor, though; that was a risk. Odin could prevent Thor from making a deal, and Loki would be forced to make good on his threat while gaining nothing, a prospect that left him cold. But if Thor did accede to his demands, there would come a point when he would have to free Jane and he would become vulnerable. Thor and Odin could – and probably would – come after him. So whatever he demanded, it would have to include some means of protecting himself from them, or he would have to spend the rest of his long life running or hiding or fighting. It was a real gamble, and he would only get one attempt.

What would he even ask of Thor? Nothing tenable came to mind. Thor could not undo Odin's curses, though perhaps Odin would acquiesce to his golden son if Loki sufficiently motivated Thor to beg hard enough. Thor himself actually had little to give, other than his strength. Almost anything Loki demanded would have to go through Odin.

Unless Thor could also be motivated to defy Odin…and Loki knew that he could. The tesseract was heavily guarded, and while it was the treasure he most valued it was also the means by which any other Asgardian treasure would be brought to him. And it was guarded and monitored by Heimdall. Thor could steal the Ice Casket or any number of other powerful relics from the weapons vault, but he would have to get past Heimdall to use the tesseract to bring it to Midgard – and Heimdall would see exactly what Thor was doing and never permit it. He should have killed Heimdall when he had the chance, rather than let him stand there as a frozen warning to anyone who considered defying Asgard's king.

If he eliminated using Jane as a bargaining chip from his plans, he was left with two more options he had thought of earlier.

He could spend the winter as Lucas, forget Jane and go somewhere else afterward, allow Heimdall to see him, and wait Odin out. Be good. Behave himself. It was the easy path. The safe path. It did not appeal to Loki in the slightest. And there was no way to know how long he would have to endure it.

If he was not willing to wait the months, years, decades, even centuries before Odin decided he was properly reformed, he could take more active measures to speed things up. Thor had been banished for an unspecified period of time Loki had assumed to be permanent, only to return triumphant just three days after nearly getting himself killed to save his friends. Perhaps there was an equivalent sacrifice to be made at the South Pole. If he brought Jane back into the equation, he could provoke Thor into coming here to attack him, and push him into that berserker state of mind such that he endangered the station in some way. Loki could then step forward and save it.

He shook his head. There was no point pursuing that line of thought any further. In any scenario that involved him and Thor, there was no question whose side Odin would take, no matter how foolish he schemed to make Thor look or how courageous and selfless he schemed to make himself look.

And if Thor was not involved…they were extremely concerned about fire here. _As well they should be if the likes of Jane Foster is supposed to save them from it_, he thought with a dark laugh. He had seen Earth's firefighters in New York and couldn't imagine Jane being capable of handling such large, heavy equipment. But he could start a fire, one the station's emergency response team could not control, then make himself known to Heimdall, walk into the flames, and put the fire out. Would it be enough? He could ensure that he stayed within the flames long enough for them to sear his skin, but he would not be able to lay down his life, since the fire could not kill him in the first place. Loki laughed. As if he would lay down his life for any of these people. It would never work. Odin didn't trust him, and letting Heimdall see him just as he walked into the blaze would make everyone question the timing and what had happened before, such as how the fire had started in the first place.

If a large-scale event would look too suspicious, there was still the small-scale version, which he needed to re-investigate. Could using magic to do good things reverse the loss of magic? If so, then he had found his loophole. He could do whatever he wanted with magic, grit his teeth through the pain, then turn someone's ten-year-old vehicle into the brand new make and model of his or her dreams and gain back every bit of magic he'd just lost. It might not get him back into Odin's good graces – he would have to let Heimdall see him on his do-good spree for that – but who needed Odin's good graces if the full use of magic was available? The actual testing – and the doing, if it worked – would not be easy, though, certainly not while remaining Lucas. He would have to do something nice without revealing he'd done it through magic, and without getting coffee thrown in his face. It was worth a try, but he was less than confident of its actual success.

With sufficient thought and effort, Loki thought, he might be able to make one of these ideas work. But since none of them were particularly promising on the surface, it was remarkably fortuitous that Jane herself had presented a new variable. A bifrost. She was close to understanding travel between the realms, or at least she believed herself to be. And despite what she'd said about current limitations in Midgard's science and technology, he knew from Selvig that she was ingenious at designing and building her own gadgets when what she needed was too expensive or simply didn't exist yet. And once he had mastered her science, with any luck at all he could fill any remaining gaps with his magic. He only need nudge her in the right direction, and her own intellectual curiosity and thirst for knowledge would do the rest.

Loki inhaled deeply, then slowly pushed the breath out through his mouth. He clasped his hands together to stop their trembling. With his own bifrost, even its ramshackle Midgardian equivalent, he could see the possibilities increasing toward infinity. He could go anywhere in the nine realms, no permission needed, and Heimdall need never even know he'd left Midgard.

He could go back to Asgard. To all those things he missed from his previous life – some of them, anyway. He would never be welcomed back with open arms, but he could disguise himself and walk through the markets with their familiar sights and sounds and smells, lie on the grass in the sun on his favorite hillside, climb worn paths up snow-capped mountains, swim in his favorite lake and let himself be pummeled by the waterfall. He could pretend he belonged in these places. He could live a lie.

No.

Nothing in Asgard was his. What could he possibly gain from going there? His every understanding of what Asgard was and what his place in it was had been turned on its head. He would not return to Asgard except as its king. And he was highly unlikely to be able to make that happen without completely draining himself of his use of magic, even with the most brilliant and audacious of plans.

Odin's curses were his biggest obstacle, no matter what he sought to accomplish. He had to find a way to break them.

And then something incredibly obvious occurred to him for the very first time, making his mouth fall open for a moment. The loophole. The loophole he'd hoped was there from the moment Odin had pressed fingers into his burnt wrist to augment Curse Number One. Any harm he did to mortals would be also done to him. _Mortals._ In all the nine realms that term referred only to the short-lived Midgardians. There was no injunction against harming anyone else. And while he might prefer talking and thinking his way out of unnecessary battles, he was perfectly capable of fighting his way through one as well – after all, he'd spent his entire life sparring with the greatest warriors Asgard had to offer. He could go to Alfheim, or better yet Svartalfheim, where the dark elves were renowned for their masters of magic – Loki had even learned a few things from them himself. He could go there, try to convince them to help him, and if they did not, he'd insist, flaunting Curse Number One and showing Odin how badly he'd underestimated his stolen Frost Giant runt.

With both curses out of the way…a smile that looked like madness spread over his face. The possibilities were endless and he could not slow his thoughts down enough to even begin to consider them.

He would show Odin.

He would show Thor.

Eventually, maybe he would even show these ungrateful Midgardians.

But, he reminded himself, his smile settling into one of determination and the mischief that Odin sought to rid him of, all of this was contingent upon a functioning Midgardian bifrost. And that was contingent upon Jane, who knew not only Midgardian science but also Midgardian technology. His plans had changed, but Jane was still the key. Keys needed to be shaped to properly do their jobs.

Loki looked down at his watch. Just past six. Time for dinner.

He jumped down from the bed, slinging his black satchel over his neck, and left the room. He would not knock on her door, but he would also not make her come to him in the galley. He had won that battle already. It was time to press forward.

/

* * *

/

Dinner did not provide the opportunities Loki had hoped for. When he reached the galley, Rodrigo Ortiz waved him over to one of the long tables at the far end of the room. He knew he would have no chance to talk privately with Jane there, but he also knew he needed to blend in among these people and could not simply ignore them all when Jane did not, so he nodded and sat down across from Rodrigo after getting his food. Rodrigo was almost finished with dinner and headed off to his room before long, but by then Selby, Wright, and the Ice Cube team members Carlo Tofani and Austin Shipley had joined them, followed by Jane after Rodrigo had already left.

He said little, vaguely answering a few questions from Rodrigo and promising that he and Jane would stop by the next day to pick up their radios. When the others arrived, conversation turned to the party the night before, which made it easy for him to half-listen and nod at appropriate times while keeping his attention on Jane out of the corner of his eye.

Jane had also not attended the party and also said little, so he watched her mannerisms, how she tugged her sweater more tightly across her chest, how she several times shook her hands before grasping her cutlery, how she drank water as though in a desert, how her brown eyes remained bright and engaged even though she had not shared in the experiences the others were discussing. They were finishing their dinner when those eyes turned fully to him. "How about you, Lucas?"

Loki blinked, quickly pulling up what he could recall of what had just been said. An invitation to do something. She had already agreed. "All right."

"Do you play anything?"

He opened his mouth, but hesitated, not sure what she meant.

"Lucas is a saxophone man, look at him! Am I right?" Wright asked.

Loki smiled in relief, doubling for Lucas's friendly smile. "Hardly. I took some music lessons when I was a child, but that was a _very_ long time ago. I don't remember a thing. And you, Jane?"

She laughed and shook her head. "I used to be able to play the high part of _Heart and Soul_ on the piano. Oh! And _Mary Had a Little Lamb_ on the…what's that thing called…the recorder. That's the extent of it."

"No recorder but we've got a keyboard, maybe we can get a guest performance out of you," Austin said.

Jane shook her head more vehemently this time. "No way. I promise to be an enthusiastic audience member, though."

"Okay, let's ditch this place then, come on," Wright said, shoving his chair back and standing up.

Jane chugged more water before slapping the lid closed on her bottle and standing up as well; Loki followed suit. They crossed the length of the galley to deposit their trays, Wright and Austin pausing along the way to invite others to whatever type of concert they were organizing, then headed downstairs to the music room. There were probably more useful things he could be doing, Loki thought, but learning more about Jane was always potentially useful, and he was rather curious about her songs about hearts and souls and little lambs. _Just as full of childish sentiment as Thor, how appropriate_.

/

* * *

/

Along with the other dozen or so audience members, Jane clapped and laughed good-naturedly at the rather odd rendition of Huey Lewis & The News's _Heart of Rock & Roll_, with Wright and Austin on guitar, Selby on keyboard, Carlo on clarinet, and someone named Jeff, whom she hadn't met, on drums. The addition of a saxophone would have been nice, and Wright tried hard to convince Lucas to come up and play, still insisting that he had to be a saxophone man. Lucas had politely but firmly refused.

"Okay, guys, last number. Any requests?" Wright asked, strumming a few bars.

"I've got one," Selby said.

"You don't count," Wright said.

"I just think that if we couldn't get Lucas up here to guest-star, then we have to get Jane. And since we don't have a recorder, I request _Heart and Soul_."

Jane's eyebrows went up. "Oh, no, really. I haven't even tried it since…I don't know, since college or something."

"It'll come back, come on up," Selby said.

"Fos-ter, Fos-ter," Wright started chanting.

Jane looked around the room and saw even Lucas was chanting her name and getting a laugh at her expense it seemed. She bent over and buried her face in her hands. Then she stood up and joined Selby, taking a seat in the chair he pulled up to his right.

"Start here," Selby said, pointing to one of the white keys.

Jane pressed it tentatively.

"Ready?"

"No," she said with a laugh. "But I'm as ready as I'll ever be, so we might as well give it a try."

"Okay. I'll start, and you jump in the second time through, okay? Then when you've got it, we'll bring up the orchestra."

She nodded and flexed her fingers. And sure enough, after he'd made it through the bottom part, she hit her starting note and it started to come back, even the one black key she had to hit. She didn't know the names of the notes or how to read music at all, so she could only attribute it to some deeply engrained muscle memory from the many times she'd played the song with a childhood friend who had a piano and took lessons and insisted on teaching Jane _Heart and Soul_ so they could play it together.

When the other instruments joined in with their own variations on the tune she was startled and got lost, but Selby moved her hand to the right spot and got her started again, and then she was fine. After a number of unique iterations – unique except for Jane's part which stayed precisely the same except for the occasional missed or off-beat note – someone had clearly given a signal to slow down for the end of the song, and Jane managed to slow her beat as well to more or less match the others.

Carlo stood off to the side laughing while the others joined hands and bowed to clapping and even a few catcalls. Selby lifted Jane's hand and nudged her forward for her own bow while Wright provided a few bars of _Heart and Soul _theme music. She did her best version of a curtsy, even pulling imaginary skirts out to the side. Although laughing hard, Jane was sure her face must be flushed crimson.

"Well, what do you know? Your musical debut at the South Pole," Selby said with a big smile after the applause died away and people started drifting toward the door.

"Such as it was! And by the way…" She punched him lightly in the shoulder.

"What was that for?! You did great."

"Okay, 'great,' is just a _tiny_ bit of an exaggeration, wouldn't you say, Selby?"

"It was _Heart and Soul_. No one expects Schubert. You were great. Really. And everybody had fun. Most importantly, _you_ had fun, right?"

"Yeah, well, I've never been accompanied by an orchestra before," she said with a laugh. And it _had_ been fun.

Wright came over and clapped Jane on the back. "Nice job, Foster. And you, Selby," he said, pointing, "I like this guest musician idea. Let's make that a tradition."

"Yeah, good job, Jane," Austin said as Carlo and the drummer nodded. "And audience participation, good idea. Especially since it was actually _mine_," he reminded them.

"Thanks for letting me put you on the spot," Selby said once the others had moved on toward the door.

"No problem. But find yourself another guest musician next time!"

"Hm, I don't know. I think everybody liked having you up here. You bring a certain…something to the group that we lack."

"Women?"

Selby looked away for a moment, and when he turned back he was both grinning and blushing. "Yeah, well, the male-female ratio is sort of out of whack."

"Lucky for me I went to Caltech. Just like home." She'd learned a lot in grad school beyond just the academics, including not to be intimidated in the slightest when she found herself the only woman among a group of men.

"Yeah, I guess, so," he said with a nod.

"But hey, you're really good," Jane said, angling her head toward the keyboard. "Did you study in school or something?"

"Nah, actually my dad is a concert violinist. So I was exposed to music a lot as a kid and I grew up with piano and violin lessons, a little bit of trumpet. I tried to keep up with it in college, but, you know, I had other interests, and not enough time. It's just a hobby now."

"Pretty cool that you can keep it up in the middle of Antarctica."

"Yeah. Oh! And I had an idea, while we were playing. I know a guy here who's really good with woodwork, so I'm going to find a nice piece of scrap wood and get a recorder made for you. Then you can be our guest star for _Mary Had a Little Lamb_," he said with a broad grin.

Jane was shaking her head as soon as she heard the word _recorder_. "No. No way. I'm sure I don't remember it. And anyway, don't you know I want to be taken seriously here? I don't want to be known as the lady who plays children's songs badly on a fake flute. What are you trying to do to me?" she asked in mock exasperation.

"Come on, it'd be fun. Besides, we'd all be up here playing it with you. We can do a jazz version. Carlo might have to learn it first, I don't know if they know that song in Italy."

"When Carlo plays it for me on the clarinet, _then_ I'll consider playing it on-"

"Jane?"

She turned around. Lucas was standing just inside the doorway. The other last two stragglers slipped past him. "Yeah?"

"Shall we meet for breakfast tomorrow?"

"Oh, uh…yeah, sure."

"7:00?"

She made a face. "How about eight? In case I'm able to actually stay asleep tonight. No, wait, you're right, we should get an early start. Selby, when can we go out to the Dark Sector Lab?"

"Uh, well, anytime, really. We can go right after breakfast. Oh, I guess you should check in with the doc first, huh?"

Jane sighed glumly. She'd conveniently forgotten about that. "He told me to come by at noon, but maybe I'll go after breakfast instead."

"So…seven?" Lucas asked, his hand on the doorframe.

"Yes, okay. Seven it is. See you then."

Lucas nodded and left, and Jane and Selby continued talking for a few more minutes before Jane returned to her room to read about a rose and get ready for bed in hopes of a good night's sleep.

/

* * *

/

Loki walked back to his room, putting some effort into keeping his face neutral. He'd been premature to think this battle won. This would not do. She had forgotten he was even in the room. She was the only reason he was on this wretched block of ice in the first place, and she'd forgotten he existed.

Loki didn't mind being hated. He understood it. Hatred was a strong fiery intoxicating emotion that kept you alive when all the forces of the universe conspired to see you dead. Love was less reliable, though occasionally useful. Thor's version of love – whatever that really was, probably some lingering sense of honor or duty to his childhood playmate – would keep him out of Jotunheim, and his mother's love would keep him free of the Chitauri's master.

Indifference, being forgotten, being ignored – these made his blood boil. He had accepted these things for far too long; those days were over.

She was talking with Selby like they were old friends, when they'd only just met. And he'd allowed it to happen, by leaving her alone with him for an entire afternoon when they must have somehow formed a friendship. That could not happen again. He would have to keep an eye on them, and on anyone else Jane decided to spend time with. Jane's work – her work for _him_ – needed to be her first and only priority. Not Selby, not Wright, not Rodrigo, not some band made up of minimally talented musicians. Nothing and no one else.

Tomorrow she would begin her work. Tonight he would assess the damage to his use of magic from the two times he'd broken the rules in McMurdo, then read his textbook, perhaps foregoing sleep to get through as much of it as possible, ready to assist. To shape his key.

* * *

/

_Thanks to a friend who read the early chapters of this before seeing _The Avengers_ and mentioned that a "tesseract" is mentioned in Madeleine L'Engle's _A Wrinkle in Time_. I kind of wish I could say I've read this book, but I haven't. Had no idea "tesseract" was anything other than a made-up-by-Joss-Whedon word to sound cooler and more modern than "cosmic cube." Look it up on Wikipedia if you're interested._

_Teasers for next chapter: Loki does something nice for Jane, but his motives are hardly pure. And there are snowmobiles. ;-)_

_And excerpt:_

"A-ha, so you're an optimist, hm?" Jane asked.

Loki considered that for a moment; he'd never particularly thought of himself as either an optimist or a pessimist. "I suppose you could say I believe in creating the conditions that turn optimism into realism."

Jane raised her eyebrows. "Not exactly lacking in confidence, are you?"

_Reviews welcome!_


	16. (15) Light

**Beneath**

Chapter Fifteen – Light

By 7:00 in the morning, Loki had read four more chapters of _Understanding the Physics of the Universe_, freshened his clothing without the use of the laundry room which he never intended to visit again, determined that his inability to change his appearance had spread only about half an inch further up his right leg and an inch more on his left foot, and made a decision concerning Jane.

He needed Jane to begin her work, and she could not do so until the healer gave her permission. He saw no reason he should be forced to wait idly for her apparently fragile health to improve, so he would improve it himself. This was no simple matter, however. He had learned to knit together broken bones and seal open wounds, but he had never dealt with altitude illness, had never even heard of or imagined such a concept. It would be a simpler matter to rid her of the symptoms of the illness, but without curing the illness itself this could prove genuinely dangerous.

Since the ultimate cause of her illness was the thinner atmosphere here, resulting in lesser amounts of useable air entering her lungs with each breath, he ultimately settled on forming a thin flexible bubble closely surrounding her, and increasing the density of the air inside it. He would lower the density a little each day until it matched the surrounding air, and then dissolve the bubble. It should require no conscious effort on his part to maintain it once formed, so the drain on his energy should in turn be minimal. It was an elegant solution, and one he was quite pleased with. He had only to test whether it would actually work as he imagined, and he waited eagerly for the appointed time when he would knock on Jane's door.

In the meantime he scoured his memory for every contact he had on Svartalfheim, both those who themselves wielded powerful magic and those who knew others who did so.

His hand was on his doorknob when the knock came on the other side.

"Good morning," he said, finding Jane standing outside his door. Her hair was pulled up into a knot, her eyes were slightly squinted, and he could immediately tell she hadn't slept well again.

"Good morning. Ready?" she asked in a scratchy voice.

He nodded and they started down the corridor out of the berthing wing and toward the galley. "Not feeling well, I take it?"

She frowned. "No."

_And not in a pleasant mood, either._ He'd only known her for a week or so but he already knew there was no point even trying to engage her in conversation right now. She was not alert and she was not interested.

He forced a smile when Rodrigo, sitting with a woman he didn't know, gave his usual friendly wave. By the time he and Jane made it to the table with their breakfasts Selby was there, too. He was growing tired of these others being around all the time; a little mischief would have made it eminently more bearable, but he had no time for that at the moment. It was actually helpful that they were there that morning, because while Rodrigo, Selby, the woman named Maddie, and later Wright talked and Jane answered questions in short syllables – mostly _yes _and _no_ – as they arose, Loki was able to concentrate on his plan. He was about to begin when he suddenly sat back for a moment to consider whether Odin, or his enchantments, would consider this use of magic mischief. And as soon as the thought occurred to him, he clenched his jaw in a burst of anger. This, after all, was exactly what Odin wanted, he realized – for Loki to question himself at every turn, for something as natural to him as breathing to be bound up in self-doubt until he came to the decision Odin deemed right. Every time he let himself be paralyzed by such questions was like letting Odin win. But he had no choice. Not yet, anyway. He had reconfirmed that this morning when he tested his ability to change his appearance. And although he had not seen any other negative effects on his control of magic, he could not ignore the risk that there already were, or that there would be with further violations of that particular rule to expand the damage.

But Loki knew the difference between the battle and the war. He would play Odin's game for now. He answered his original question with a _no_, this was not mischief, and it would certainly not cause chaos. Whatever his ultimate reasons for doing this, he was _helping_ Jane, providing her with a cure the Midgardian healer could not. She would feel better, she would be happier, and she would get what she herself desired – to begin her work. It was simply fortuitous for him that they desired the same thing.

It then occurred to him that this was actually a good test of his earlier question: would the use of magic to help someone, to "do good," reverse the decrease in his control of magic?

Without further hesitation, he began to form a membrane of interconnected particles around her seated form. It struck him that he could now put Midgardian names and properties to some of those particles, but he found this distracting. Because he could not risk his actions being observed, he was not using his hands to create the bubble; strictly speaking he did not need to, but it was his habit, and the sense of physically reaching for what he was manipulating aided his focus. This was no simple barrier he was creating. It had to take account of objects and people in contact with her, such as the chair she sat on and the floor beneath her feet. It had to allow the continual flow of fresh air.

When he was finished, the bubble pressurized and sealed, he released a shaky breath and steadied himself. He had accomplished his task not a moment too soon. Jane took a deep breath – Loki wondered if she could already feel the difference in the air pressure – and pushed her chair back along with the others; he followed suit. She was going to see the station's healer next, but he wanted to give his intervention a little more time to work, to increase the chances of a positive response.

"Jane, are you really feeling no better? What are your symptoms?" he asked as they walked through the galley to drop off their trays.

"Not really. I think I slept a little better, but I still woke up a lot," she said, then ticked off all her symptoms so smoothly it was clear she'd already done so many times.

"I'm sorry to hear that. I do hope it clears up quickly. I know how anxious you are to get to work."

"Yeah, me too. And I don't get it. I mean, I've been hiking at altitude before in California, and I never had any problems, not like this. I guess that's the difference between gradual and immediate ascent."

"I suppose. You enjoy hiking, then?"

She paused to give him an inquisitive look. They said goodbye to the others – Selby would be waiting in the Science Lab to find out whether Jane was permitted to go out to the dark sector yet – and lingered in the main corridor outside the galley. "So, uh, yeah, I like going hiking. I like being outdoors in general. But I thought you knew that."

"How would I know that? Oh, you told me about some hill you climbed at McMurdo," he said, recalling where she had been while he'd busied himself with her laptop.

"No, not that, I meant when you asked…. Well, it all seems so stupid now. I was convinced SHIELD had given you a file on me and told you to…yeah." She paused, grimaced, pressed a hand to her forehead for a moment.

Loki had no idea what she was talking about with her half-sentences, but he supposed it didn't matter.

"I was so rude to you. I really am sorry. I swear that's not…not the real me. They kept me holed up in this place in Norway in the middle of nowhere during that whole New York thing and once I figured out what was going on they wouldn't let me leave. They watched everything I did, followed me when they finally let me out, and they hid and took pictures when a friend came to visit me. I guess it really did a number on me. It's harder to trust people now."

"You've apologized enough. I understand, I think," he said. "No one would react well to that kind of treatment, especially from those who have set themselves up as friends and protectors. Friends don't behave that way. But I do still hope that_ we_ can come to trust one another despite the earlier misunderstanding."

She nodded, but was glancing at the door to medical, which was located next to the galley. Distracted.

"Why don't we go pick up our radios from the communications office before you go see the doctor? Rodrigo reminded me about it last night."

"We can go after. I'm really anxious to get the yay or nay."

"I believe I saw Dr. Brissett in the galley. He won't be in his office yet anyway."

"Really?" Jane asked, glancing back toward the galley entrance. "I didn't notice. Well, okay then. Let's do it."

A few minutes later they were at the opposite end of the main corridor in Satcom with its TV screens and computer monitors and radios and microphones. Rodrigo issued them their personal Kenwood UHF transceiver radios and showed them the emergency functions and how to make and respond to person-to-person, workgroup, and station-wide calls. Then they both did quick tests; Loki imitated Jane's "testing, testing."

"Do we need to say anything in particular? You know, 'over' and 'do you copy' and things like that?" Jane asked, fiddling with the dials and turning it over in her hands.

Loki clipped his to his belt, satisfied that he knew how to operate it and now hoping he did not need to learn yet another version of speech to talk on it.

"No, it's pretty casual. Just tune it to who you want to talk to and start talking. And it's not a huge deal when you're inside the station, but any time you go out you should always have it with you and on, just in case. Oh, and when the sun sets keep them on if you want to know that someone's spotted an aurora. We use the radios to let everybody know to run outside if they want to see something cool."

"Okay, got it," Jane said, peering at the tiny screws on the radio.

"You're one of _those_, huh? Don't go taking that thing apart. 'Do not modify this transceiver for any reason.' It's the first do-not warning line in the owner's manual. Right under the big 'explosive gases' warning. Last winter a couple of guys did that over a bet. We couldn't get the radios working again."

"Oh, all right, fine. If you insist. I've got to go see the doctor now anyway. Hoping for a thumbs up to head out to the dark sector."

"Then we've got our radios just in time," Loki said. "I have a feeling you're going to get your thumbs up."

"A-ha, so you're an optimist, hm?" Jane asked.

Loki considered that for a moment; he'd never particularly thought of himself as either an optimist or a pessimist. "I suppose you could say I believe in creating the conditions that turn optimism into realism."

Jane raised her eyebrows. "Not exactly lacking in confidence, are you?"

_You have no idea, Jane Foster._

"Not a bad philosophy, though," Rodrigo said with a shrug.

Jane started to respond but the radio crackled with a message that sounded almost as though it were in code.

"Sorry, guys, that's McMurdo. I've got to respond."

"Okay, thanks, Rodrigo. See you later," Jane said.

He waved and started speaking into a microphone; Loki followed Jane out into the corridor.

"You know, I do think my headache is letting up. Maybe it was that extra liter of water I forced down this morning. I think I might drown, but it would totally be worth it."

Loki smiled warmly and nodded. "I'm sure that was it."

/

* * *

/

Jane burst into the Science Lab grinning from ear to ear.

"I guess I don't need to ask what the doctor said," Selby asked with his own grin. He stood up from his desk.

Lucas looked up from his computer screen with raised eyebrows but said nothing.

"Vitals look better, headache's faded. Selby, when can we go?"

"Right now. Wright's out there now. We just need to get our gear on and we're out of here."

"Excellent! Oh, but there's one hitch. Dr. Brissett doesn't want me walking it yet. I'm supposed to go out on a snowmobile, can we do that?"

Selby nodded. "Not a problem. I did my little training on that when I was at McMurdo, so I can drive us. It only seats two, though, but you can ride on a sled or walk, whatever you prefer, Lucas."

Jane pumped a fist in the air. "Yes! I mean, not about you, Lucas, sorry." He was looking back at his computer; Jane was too excited to take much note of his lack of enthusiasm. "A sled sounds like fun."

"I'll walk," he said over his shoulder.

"Okay then," Jane said with a nod. "Let's suit up!"

/

* * *

/

About half an hour later Jane and Lucas stood outside Destination Alpha or DA, the station's "front door" they'd come in through two days earlier. It was sunny and bright and cold, but Jane felt reasonably warm in her gear. She was grateful to see the sun in this winter wonderland, especially since it wouldn't be long before she wouldn't see it for months, and she was grateful to breathe the outside air, even if it bit at her throat and lungs. But most of all she was grateful to finally be getting out to work on her equipment. She was tugging at the ends of her gloves and shifting her weight from foot to foot.

To their left were the myriad smaller buildings and berms and storage containers that made the research station look more like a cargo depot, and to their right was their destination – the pristine white fields dotted with some of the world's most advanced precision scientific instruments, true marvels of modern engineering constructed over multiple years in the harshest conditions on the planet.

She looked up at Lucas, standing still and impassive and gazing out toward the dark sector. "Hey, aren't you excited about this too?" she asked. "I mean, how can you not be?"

He turned his steel blue eyes toward her, his expression mostly hidden beneath his gear, even his eyes distorted by goggles. "I'm ecstatic on the inside," he said calmly.

Jane rolled her eyes and laughed. Lucas was really pretty odd. But she had met her share of odd people in life – some had even slapped that label on her – so _odd_ didn't particularly bother her or put her off. She was perfectly content to assume his strange droll comments were intended as humor so long as he gave her no cause to believe otherwise. And he _had_ to be ecstatic on the inside; no student of astronomy could fail to be elated at where they were.

Selby came around the corner of the building in a Ski-Doo snowmobile for the curbside service he'd promised, and it occurred to Jane that her concession to the doctor would actually turn out to be one of the coolest rides she'd ever taken, way better than anything at Disneyland.

"Helmet," Selby said as Jane settled in behind him. He extended a hand back toward her and she took the dark blue helmet he passed her.

"Ugh," she muttered – she had some gear to rearrange now – but obediently took the helmet and got to work.

"Lucas, it's not like you'd get lost anyway, but just follow the red flags. We'll wait for you right inside the door."

Jane thought her face might break from her smile when Selby's foot hit the gas and they set off with a lurch over the packed snow. She reached her right hand behind her to grab on to the handle of the small storage box there and her laughter melted into the wind and endless white.

/

* * *

/

If he were capable of suffocating – and Loki didn't think he was, certainly not without considerable effort – he felt certain he would have done so in these layers of clothing. The one-piece overalls and especially the multiple items constricting his face and limiting his vision bothered him most of all. He decided this would be the last time he would bow to these means of safeguarding precarious human health. But first he would have to test whether it would be considered mischief for him to wear whatever he chose and project or transform the rest as needed. Another spasm of anger toward Odin jolted through him for forcing him to take that into consideration for such a trivial thing, intended only to improve his comfort and his ability to protect himself.

Jane interrupted his thoughts to ask if he were excited.

_Oh yes, Jane. Very excited._ "I'm ecstatic on the inside," he told her, making her laugh. She had adapted easily to his shift in persona and responded well to it, and he was satisfied to leave things as they were for the moment, though he strongly suspected they would not be able to remain that way for long.

A few minutes later he walked in the ski tracks behind the vehicle carrying Jane and Selby away toward the largest visible telescope in the distance and the attached building. He narrowed his eyes as a scream followed by laughter – both Jane's – was carried back toward him on the wind. His first thought was that he would much rather be driving that vehicle than walking, and would like to have one or two at his personal disposal; in simpler times he would have enjoyed testing its limits together with those he'd once considered friends. But as he watched Jane, Selby, and their vehicle grow smaller and smaller as it gained distance from him, he was reminded of a similar scene from his youth, one that had been repeated over the centuries in different guises.

Loki did not like the role of tag-along. And in these particular circumstances, it was simply unacceptable. Jane was forming a bond with Selby, sharing experiences with him when she was supposed to be spending her time with her erstwhile assistant. That would have to stop. And if it did not on its own, once Selby's tour guide function was no longer needed, then Loki would have to intervene to ensure that it stopped. He had certainly learned more effective means of doing that than injuring himself in a childish attempt to gain attention. Never again would he break his _own_ bones to get what he wanted.

The South Pole Telescope he realized, as he approached it, was impressive. Not bifrost-impressive, but this was Midgard after all. He entered the building at the door near the snowmobile, and Jane and Selby were waiting nearby as promised, chatting and laughing amicably about something called "Ditch Day."

"I'll tell you later," Jane said to Selby as Loki started removing layers; Jane and Selby had already done so, hanging their jackets and other unneeded items on a series of hooks by the door.

"Sure," Selby agreed. "Ready for the tour?"

Loki saw Jane nod out of the corner of his eye as he hung up his red jacket.

"Lucas, you're going to have to try that, it was _awesome_. If the doc wants me to keep coming and going on one of those things I won't complain."

"We don't really use them in winter, so I'm told. Problems with the tracks in the extreme cold."

"Oh, right. Pity. We should take advantage of them as much as we can in the meantime."

"Sure, actually, if you want, I can take you for a spin around the station tonight. I've been wanting to get some pictures out there away from the buildings anyway."

"Oh, that would be great! I have a new camera I should try out, too. And I should probably start sending some pictorial proof to my friends that I'm actually at the South Pole and not making the whole thing up. Ready, Lucas?"

Loki slung his satchel back over his neck and nodded.

Selby led them through a corridor choked with haphazard seemingly random items – if her bedroom was any indication Jane would feel right at home here, Loki thought. They came to a series of tightly sealed shrink-wrapped wooden crates that Jane clearly recognized as her own. Jane ran her hands over them, practically caressing them, and exclaimed her relief to see them here and her eagerness to open them up and inspect them; Loki eyed them curiously, wondering if one of them could be modified to create a bifrost. It was hard to imagine something so small and surely relatively primitive could harness that much power.

They went upstairs and out onto the deck where the ten-meter telescope itself was housed, along with more random items, some partly buried in snow. Not properly dressed, they didn't linger, but Jane's exuberance and the light in her eyes as she looked it over and Selby pointed out a few things about it were unmistakable.

Back inside they went through the cluttered corridor again and into the Dark Sector Lab itself, where Wright greeted them. Jane and Loki were provided another desk and computer each. Jane was clearly glad to hear the DSL was wired for internet; Loki was as well, figuring this room afforded more privacy than did the Science Lab in the station, and perhaps a bit more even than the computer room.

"Well, I'm sure you're anxious to get those boxes opened. Do you need any help?" Selby asked.

"No, thanks. I've got Lucas for that," Jane said, resting a hand on his upper arm.

Loki kept his reaction from showing, but hoped she would remove her hand from him quickly and not make a habit of this. He needed her close but not _that_ close, and he didn't care for the implication in her words or the sense of being put on display as her assistant. But he had set up that particular role himself and he was perfectly ready and willing to continue to live with it. He didn't need her or anyone else to know who was really in control here; the fact that he knew it himself was sufficient.

Selby provided them with several tools to get past the thick plastic sheeting and the pry open the boxes, and Loki followed Jane back out into the corridor.

Jane hadn't really told him much about the various devices she had built and shipped here, so he listened carefully as she gave him the rundown on each one, laced with stories as she went about how, when, where, and why she'd built them. A couple of them were newly augmented via material and financial assistance from Tony Stark's research foundation, and one of them she kept relatively quiet about, which made Loki intensely curious. Two of them, along with a telescope that was recognizably so to Loki since he'd used something similar on Asgard, had nothing whatsoever to do with Jane's research but were sent by a friend of hers in Australia – the "really small tiny projects" she had mentioned when they first met.

Once everything was opened, Loki followed Jane's lead in running diagnostics on each piece of equipment to make sure nothing was overly jostled in transit. One of her particle collectors, an older one, was in fact damaged in some way, so she got more tools from Selby and got to work repairing it while Loki powered up the rest of the pieces.

They were close to missing the galley's lunchtime hours by the time Jane pounded on a table and declared the homemade device that looked a little like a miniature satellite dish as good as new. Noting how obviously cobbled-together the thing was, Loki doubted that was saying much. Some of the newer pieces were much more intriguing.

Selby had delayed his own lunch to be able to drive Jane on the snowmobile again – Wright had already left – and while Loki considered joining them, he decided it was not worth his time. He would have to make sure Jane was completely better by tomorrow so that the snowmobile was no longer needed. Despite likely minor differences in their physiology, he was confident he could heal her headache; he'd suffered from them for a time as a young man and had become proficient in eliminating them as they developed.

A better use of his time was scanning Jane's e-mails and learning more of Midgardian science. Jane's friend Darcy referenced a package she'd sent Jane and insisted she should read page 38; it was rather cryptic but then much of what Darcy wrote he found cryptic and too full of what he assumed to be local slang to follow. He thought it unlikely there was any cause for alarm in her rambling message, though since this person was apparently the only one Jane had told about Thor's impromptu visit to Norway Loki wanted to keep a particularly close eye on their communication.

He spent the rest of the time until Wright returned, followed by Jane and Selby, reading on the internet about Albert Einstein. The man had been vastly ahead of his time, posing theories about things that could not yet be observed that later, once actually observed, turned about to be remarkably accurate. It was little wonder his name came up so often. And his theories provided some of Earth's first scientific indications of the possibility of rapid travel through space, of a version of Asgard's bifrost. Loki began to wish he'd spent more time learning about the technical workings of the bifrost observatory. He knew how to command it from his brief stint as king of Asgard, but this relied on magic that was simple for the user, whether through the enchanted Gungnir or through Heimdall's dedicated sword. Controlling the bifrost did not mean he knew how to build one from scratch, whether the bridge that channeled the power or the observatory that focused it.

Turning his attention from Asgard and the bifrost to Midgard and Albert Einstein, Loki took an unintended detour into reading about the man's personal life. Einstein had voluntarily renounced his citizenship of his homeland – Germany, Loki was interested to note, having been there once himself – because people of his race were being treated badly there. He'd later taken up United States citizenship and supported war efforts against the home he was born to, though apparently with words rather than the sword, or whatever weapons the Midgardians were using at that time.

Perhaps true strength was forged in betrayal and persecution. Not Thor's type of strength, but those "other forms" of strength his mother would speak of when he was young and feeling inadequate next to his brother. He hadn't understood what she meant then, or more accurately he'd dismissed it because it wasn't those "other forms" that made him doubt himself so much, that made him feel like he wasn't living up to what Odin expected. He understood now. Strength came in many forms other than the ability to lift heavy objects or pummel someone with your fists or your forged-in-the-heart-of-a-dying-star hammer. Strength came from the mind – intellect, magic, manipulation, control, deceit. Loki excelled in these. And his physical strength was formidable as well, especially in this realm where no individual would stand a chance against him, with the exception of one giant green freak of Midgardian nature.

When Wright returned Loki chided himself for letting his thoughts run so far afield. He read another article on a variation of the Einstein-Rosen Bridge theory while awaiting Jane's return.

/

* * *

/

"Hey, Jane, have you met Sue on SPUD yet?" Selby asked, swinging by the corner of the DSL where she was running calibrations on one of her newer sensors.

"No, I haven't, I wanted to though." She glanced up from the readout her own handheld computer, a new toy she'd acquired from SHIELD. SPUD was a telescope designed to measure B-mode polarization and showcased a particularly impressive use of acronyms, standing as it did for Small Polimeter Upgrade for DASI, with DASI in turn standing for Degree Angular Scale Interferometer.

"She keeps weird hours. Why don't we go over to MAPO now? She'll still be there and we should still be able to make it back in time for dinner."

"Dinner?" Jane glanced at her watch. It was already past 6:30. "Wow, how did that happen?" she asked rhetorically. _The same way it always happens_ was the answer. She was notorious for losing track of time while working.

"Go ahead, I can finish this one," Lucas offered.

Jane considered it. Only one person was actually needed to run each of the calibrations, but they were doubling up on them because Lucas didn't know her equipment – well, no one knew her equipment except her. That was a byproduct of do-it-yourself astrophysics. So as they worked their way through each one, she explained it and made it his responsibility to track all of the results. It was fun in a way; she could almost imagine she was a professor training her graduate student. Much more fun than teaching uninterested undergraduates just trying to check a gen ed requirement how to calculate the mass of Charon just to check a curriculum requirement. Lucas mostly just listened and did what she told him to, but when he spoke up it was usually to ask a good question, and Jane enjoyed explaining the answer.

But if she were going to take on this pseudo-professorial role, she should make sure Lucas met all the scientists out here, too. Contacts were important in just about any career, she figured. Preferably contacts who didn't think you were crazy, of course. And maybe if he didn't bring up that whole building a wormhole generator idea again he might actually do better at that than she had.

"No, let's both go," she decided. "We can finish with this sensor tomorrow. Then maybe you or Wright could help us link up a couple of these with the telescopes?" she asked Selby. "I got permission before I came here." The Stark Institute for Scientific Innovation had obtained permission actually, just in case her name would have gotten the request rejected.

"Yeah, I know. And sure, we can do that. We've got some calibrations of our own to run tomorrow, but it shouldn't be hard to work your stuff in. So, you want to walk to MAPO or be chauffeured?"

Jane laughed. This was getting ridiculous. "Definitely walk. It's so close. And actually I feel great. Maybe it's just adrenaline from finally getting out here and getting to work, but I've got more energy than I've had since getting here and I feel like I could climb a mountain."

"The doctor would probably advise against that," Lucas put in.

"It's not like there are any here to climb anyway, so I think I'm good. Let's get this stuff shut down and pay a visit to our neighbors."

ECW gear went on and in just a few short minutes came off again as they went inside the Martin A. Pomerantz Observatory.

Selby led them through the building until they came to the office area, where an Asian woman around Jane's age sat hunched over a computer. "Hey, Sue, come up for air. I brought you some visitors."

Sue, who turned out to really be Su-Ji Lee, turned around, pushed her glasses higher up on her nose, and stood. Noticing she was also about her height, a question immediately popped into Jane's head that would probably not be appropriate if she were to blurt it out right away. But she was definitely asking.

They exchanged the typical brief professional and personal background information; Jane noticed that Lucas said he was from Toronto and was mildly annoyed that he would volunteer that to someone he just met and wouldn't answer her when she asked him directly about being Canadian.

"So, Sue, I'm sorry if this seems a little weird," she began once the pleasantries were out of the way, "but how do you get in and out of bed? Because I'm scared I'm going to break my leg or maybe my head every time I get up."

Everyone laughed – well, Lucas appeared to be smirking rather than laughing per se – but Jane wasn't the least bit bothered. Being "vertically challenged" was just another part of life. It wasn't her fault the beds at the South Pole station were designed for Thor. Or Lucas for that matter.

"There _is_ a solution, and it's called a two-step stool. It's on wheels but it locks. And I'm still afraid I'm going to break something sometimes, but I'll show you were I got mine from, it's one of the jamesways. There's three or four more in there."

"A _two_-step stool, imagine that!" Jane declared sarcastically, wondering why no one had thought to put one of _those_ in the rooms in the first place. "That sounds great, thanks."

"Uh, Jane, you _did_ know you can actually lower the height of the bed, didn't you?" Selby asked.

Jane turned to him in confusion. "Uh…what?" _So someone left a little detail out of one of those briefings, hm?_

"But then you lose the storage space under the bed. So most of us keep them high anyway, even if it means we have to be gymnasts to get up there," Sue said.

"I'll show you how to do it later if you want," Selby offered. He was tactfully avoiding laughter, but Jane could hear it in his voice nonetheless. In the great tradition of Caltech pranking, she was going to have to think of something clever to pull on him.

"I guess it'll be fine once I have a taller stepstool," she said. And Sue was right, the storage under the bed was helpful.

"A cargo flight is coming in tomorrow at around three. It's supposed to be the fifth and final one for the day," Sue said. "Yours truly is going to guide the plane once it lands. Afterward I can take you over to the jamesway."

"Okay, but…you're directing the landing? Of the airplane? Really?"

"The taxiing, yep. You can do it, too, if you're interested. Just talk to the fuelies and take the safety briefing seriously. But you have to come up with cool props to use to signal the pilots first."

Landing planes. With props. And ten-meter telescopes and telescopes buried in the ice detecting neutrinos through the planet's core from the North Pole and her own upgraded equipment in cold dry air and snowmobile rides and cool people and an upcoming prank war and – she glanced over at Lucas, as quiet as ever, shaking her head and laughing – her very own odd assistant. This was going to be one of the most amazing and unforgettable experiences of her life.

* * *

/

_[Special note: I'm really not sure if it needs the clarification, but just in case - regarding the line about people being "treated badly" in Nazi Germany, since that is real stuff as opposed to fake stuff allow me to simply note that that was Loki's minimally-informed POV based on reading about Einstein vice WWII itself, and is in no way intended to minimize or simplify the Holocaust.]_

_So things are looking up again for Jane, hm? Of course she's spending most of her time with Loki so that's probably not going to last terribly long._

_Teasers: Jane finishes her meds but Loki thinks he'll miss those pills; Loki gets a sled ride that's not exactly what he's expecting; Jane sees something she wasn't supposed to; Selby again draws Loki's attention (which is, you might imagine, not really necessarily a good thing)._

_And excerpt (Jane and Loki speaking, which I'm sure you would realize anyway):_

"You didn't have much time for thinking in Melfort. So you'll be looking for answers about what to do with the rest of your life while you're here?"

"You could say that," he answered after a short pause. She was pretty sure the smile was still there, but something she couldn't put her finger on made her a little uncomfortable.

Hope you enjoyed! Reviews most welcome.


	17. (16) Secrets

Beneath

Chapter Sixteen – Secrets

That evening after dinner Selby was good to his word. They'd joined a long table full of people Loki mostly didn't know, many of whom were leaving on the last passenger flight out in a couple of days, in the near-capacity galley. As the crowd dwindled and dinners were finished, Selby asked Jane if she felt up to going out, and she nodded enthusiastically.

"Definitely," she said. "I'm a little tired but I'm feeling so much better. And I just took my last pill so all those other symptoms will be gone soon, too."

Loki allowed the barest of smiles to pull up the corners of his lips. How happy she would've been to have known she didn't need to take that last pill. But he couldn't have told her without giving her some plausible reason. And besides, he'd come to find the sight of her flapping her hands about as though trying to shake off something firmly stuck on rather amusing. What would be the fun in ending that prematurely?

"Lucas?" Selby was asking.

"Yes?" Loki answered, startled, then shook off the sense that this bothersome mortal had somehow picked up on his thoughts.

"Want to come with us? It's a long way to walk, so you'd want to use the sled."

Loki quickly sifted his options. He had no interest in being part of a threesome – he had no interest in getting to know anyone here except Jane. He would rather return to his tiny room to continue reading his textbook. But the idea of leaving Jane alone with Selby again made him feel uneasy. Selby and Wright had begun as a package deal, but something had changed and only Wright had faded into the background as they both should have. Loki would rather they both faded into utter irrelevancy. They weren't going to build a bifrost for him; Jane was, he thought without question.

"Certainly. It sounds fun," he responded after only a moment's hesitation.

"Great! Okay, same as before, I'll meet you outside, DZ this time. Thirty minutes?"

"Sure," Jane agreed.

Loki nodded, but this time it would not take him half an hour to get into his gear. The three split up, and in his room he changed into the comfortable casual Asgardian clothes he'd worn when he left home – the almost-black violet shirt and black leather pants. He smiled and sighed from the simple pleasure of it. He touched his shirt and watched as the particles morphed and rearranged themselves; the ubiquitous red jacket with "Lucas Cane" on the pocket flap over the round Antarctica seal appeared. Tailored Asgardian comfort on the inside, garish "Big Red" on the outside. The mortals certainly lacked Asgardian creativity when it came to naming their personal effects, Loki thought with a smirk.

Certain now that this magic would cost him nothing, he transformed his pants next, then stopped at his bare feet. He tried to form the image of his favorite leather boots and found that nothing had changed. Doing something nice for Jane had also _gained_ him nothing. There were two explanations: doing nice things simply wouldn't help, or only doing nice things with entirely pure motives would help. He laughed darkly at that, for in the end they were one and the same. He couldn't remember the last time he'd done anything with entirely pure motives.

He lifted the right foot and angled the leg, glaring down at the large swollen spot with its five pinpricks of black. He barely noticed the pain when he walked anymore, but he never forgot the wound was there. _Don't think you've won, Odin._ He sat down on the bed and reluctantly pulled on socks and the white boots. All in all, a successful experiment, he thought. He added the illusion of a balaclava, hat, and goggles, then sighed in relief at how much more comfortable this was than actually wearing all those layers. He would also be much colder outside, but that was a price worth paying.

He arrived first at the DZ entrance, Destination Zulu, which the people here referred to as the back door, illogically so, given that Destination Alpha was at one end of the building and DZ was located between the A-1 and A-4 berthing wings, which should make one of them the side door. It was an inconsequential detail with no bearing on his life or his goals whatsoever – they could call their doors whatever they wanted – but for some reason it annoyed him and made him long to carry out some architectural revisions on the building.

Selby arrived next, rushing past. "It'll just take me a few minutes. I have to hook up the sled," he explained as he went out.

Loki's nose twitched behind the illusion of the balaclava, picturing sleds he'd ridden in on occasion as a younger man. This evening could actually prove to be entertaining. Much more so than the previous one, which had only picked up once Jane had pretended to be able to play an instrument.

Jane arrived several minutes later. "It still takes me forever to get into all this," she mumbled, adjusting her hat. "_You're_ apparently getting better at it," she added.

He smiled, stepping closer to the door. "Ready?"

Jane nodded and he pushed the door open.

"Wow," she said when they stood outside on the metal ledge. "That just doesn't stop feeling weird."

"What?"

"8:30 at night looking about the same as noon."

Before he could respond they heard the noise of the snowmobile's engine from somewhere still out of sight, and headed down the stairs to meet Selby. When they reached ground level Loki's mouth fell open for just a moment. When Selby had said "sled" Loki had not pictured the thin long flat red thing trailing behind the snowmobile. This was a poor excuse for a child's toboggan, not a sled. Jane was reaching for his arm to tug him along when he paused, staring, and for a moment he was so distracted that he forgot to let her think she could move him and she stumbled and nearly fell. He grabbed for her arm instead, careful to be gentle about it, and steadied her. He sucked in a slow, steadying breath as he resigned himself to yet another indignity in this realm.

"You can hang on to the cord, Lucas. I know it looks kind of dicey but we won't be getting up too much speed, maybe some on the skiway, but that's a nice smooth ride. Beyond that the sastrugi out there can be pretty rough," Selby said over his shoulder.

Loki nodded, and as Jane settled into her spot behind Selby Loki lowered himself to the ground in the middle of the red…mat might be the best word, he thought. A cord was threaded all along the sides. Selby soon gave the machine fuel and Loki coughed at the unexpected intake of engine exhaust fumes. As they worked up speed the snowmobile sprayed up snow and ice into his face and he realized he really should have been facing the opposite direction; he turned his head to the side and pulled up his hood. The station receded and he began to understand what _sastrugi_ were as he bounced up and down on what looked almost like frozen wave crests. Instinctively he reached out a hand to smooth the ground ahead of him and the ride became gentler.

He let his eyes drift closed – there was nothing to see but white, the black end of the snowmobile, and Jane's red back. As everything stilled around him and he felt nothing more than the cold wind assaulting his unprotected face, he slipped back through the centuries without conscious awareness.

_Asgardian winters were usually mild. Snow fell in the mountains, but in the city and the surrounding towns and fields and valleys, more than a thin layer that melted by midday was rare. And so, when one evening the snow started and the temperature dropped and the layer of white grew all night and through dawn, normal life was put on hold as nearly all of Asgard came out to marvel at the transformation of their realm. The two ten-year-old princes, the elder closer to eleven, were no exception._

_Both dropped their father's hand as they raced forward in the stables to touch what had been hitched behind one of the horses – a toboggan, carved from pale wood and sealed, two seats built into it as well. The brothers looked back and forth between their father and his surprise; Father smiled at their eagerness. "Go on, get in," he told them._

"_I claim front seat!" Thor shouted and leapt over the side and into the seat without hesitation._

_Loki frowned at him, then shrugged his shoulders and clamored into the back seat._

_Father mounted the horse and they set off slowly over the straw; at his command the doors of the gate opened outward. Thor never noticed her but Mother was standing just outside. Loki called out and waved, then, startled, grabbed on to the sides of the toboggan as they ramped up onto the snow and picked up speed. Bundled in fur-lined leather, the boys blinked against snowflakes still falling and yelled out their delight as the wind whipped through their hair and the white-blanketed world flew past._

The snowmobile lurched to a halt and the sweet scent of pine trees was abruptly replaced with mechanical exhaust. Loki stood and stretched his long legs, turning around until he spotted the station far in the distance. He wasn't sure the mortals would even be able to see it. There was a certain beauty to the landscape, so brightly lit by the sun's rays reflecting off the endless flat snow-covered ground. But there was desolation and emptiness as well.

As Jane and Selby took pictures and made the occasional comment, Loki reflected on the memory he hadn't thought about since leaving his childhood behind. That night the boys had stayed up late talking by a crackling fire in the family's common sitting room. Both were convinced that Odin had blinked the toboggan into existence, while Loki was not as convinced as Thor that he had used Mjolnir – which he wielded at times before it was passed to Thor at his twentieth birthday ceremony – to make it snow. Now Loki wondered if Thor hadn't been right after all, and Odin had called down snow to test whether his little Frost Giant would react differently to it than his true son.

How deceptively simple everything had seemed then. How utterly trusting he'd been that things were what they seemed – that _Father_, _Mother_, and _Brother_ were just that. That Asgard was as much his as it was theirs. _And they label _me_ a liar. I learned from the best._

"Hey, Lucas!" Jane called.

He twisted around toward her voice, then quickly ducked his head just in time to avoid his face – albeit mostly hidden behind illusions of protective gear – filling the frame of her camera.

"Oh, come on! Don't you want pictures out here? You didn't bring a camera?"

"I don't have a camera, and if you don't mind, I don't care to have my picture taken," he said, partially turning his back to her in case she decided to try again anyway.

But she didn't, and soon they were off again, stopping at two more vantage points before finally returning to the station.

/

* * *

/

Jane shut her alarm off, then rolled onto her back and stretched languidly – arms, tingling fingers, neck, back, legs, tingling feet. She let her head loll to the side and smiled at the image of the Pacific Ocean. She was not a morning person, but she may as well have been one that day. Certainly more so than the last two mornings she'd woken up at the bottom of the world. She'd slept soundly, only waking once to go the bathroom…and as soon as she realized that, she groaned at the pressure from her bladder and eased herself carefully down from the bed to the footstool, relieved that after today she wouldn't have quite so far down to go before reaching the stool. She shoved her feet into her flip-flops and threw her blue terrycloth robe on over her peach-colored pajamas and hurried down to the restroom.

Back in her room she lifted the shade to the ever present sunlight, powered up her laptop, and sat down at the desk. She got a good laugh out of an e-mail from Darcy, and was surprised and excited to learn that Darcy had sent her a package. Even after getting other packages earlier, it hadn't occurred to her that she might get more. It reminded her of being at Space Camp, when her parents and grandparents and aunt and uncle had all sent her care packages even though she hadn't really been there long enough to need so much stuff, mostly candy. It had certainly made her popular with her fellow campers, though.

Darcy had sent a book, and couldn't wait for her to read whatever was on page 38. Jane was pretty sure whatever book Darcy had sent would be some light enjoyable fluff – Jane's version of light reading rather than Lucas's. _Ancient history, philosophy. _Jane rolled her eyes. He even sounded like he was telling the truth, rather than trying to impress her with his oh-so-intellectual pursuits. Whatever.

Jane dashed off a few responses, then gathered up supplies for the one thing that would get this day off on an even more spectacular foot than it already had – a shower. There wasn't much time before she was supposed to meet Lucas, but when you were only allowed two minutes of water, how long could a shower take?

By the time Lucas knocked on her door to walk down to the galley for breakfast with her, she didn't think it was possible to feel any better. She was fully acclimatized to the altitude, full of energy from a good night's sleep, and her hair was brushed out over her shoulders, healthy-shiny instead of oily-shiny. All was right with the world. A visit to Dr. Brissett right after breakfast confirmed it.

Now that Jane no longer required a chauffeur to get out to the dark sector, she and Lucas geared up and met at Destination Alpha to walk out on their own, with Selby and Wright planning to follow at around 10:00. It was an even -40 Fahrenheit.

Jane glanced up at the man walking silently beside her. "I've been meaning to ask you, what's your specialization? What are your own research interests?"

He didn't answer immediately, and the silence held long enough for her to wonder if he had any intention of answering. In the end, though, he did. "To be perfectly honest," he prefaced, "I don't know yet. I've assisted in a few of my professors' projects, but when I make my own proposals they're deemed too…unorthodox."

Jane raised her eyebrows and nodded. "I can't imagine," she deadpanned. _You mention studying the formation of wormholes, and he says "Let's make one!"_

"I was taking the semester off when SHIELD tracked me down in Melfort."

"Tracked you down? That's creepy." She wondered just what he'd proposed that made him interesting enough for SHIELD to want to "track him down."

He angled his head to the side for a moment, half-acknowledging her words, she interpreted. Probably he didn't want to speak ill of his benefactors. When you were down to your last dime sometimes you had to grit your teeth and…well, you did unless you had a trustfund. Lucas probably didn't need SHIELD as much as she did. And he didn't owe them the way she did, or at least felt she did, like it or not. For supporting her work when no one else did. For Phil.

Son-of-Coul, as she'd taken to jokingly calling him – following Thor's non-joking example – once they'd gotten to know each other, had a deliciously dry sense of humor, always with just the right amount of smile accompanying it so that, at least if you knew him, you easily recognized the joke. He'd spun a whole tale once about his father "Coul," Norse God of Bureaucracy – as if she really believed Phil was just a paper pusher – and ever since then nearly every time she'd spoken to him she'd inquired about Coul. Right up until the last time. Of course, she hadn't known it would be the last time. But then, you never did.

"Why Melfort?" she asked. She'd wondered about that, but now she mostly wanted to distract herself from a fresh wave of grief.

"I wanted some peace and quiet. A place where I could think. And enjoy nature. Melfort has beautiful auroras, and pristine forests. Good ice fishing. And good semi-professional hockey."

Jane laughed, every stereotype she'd ever heard about Canada flashing through her mind. "Well, of _course_ they have good semi-professional hockey."

"Do you enjoy the sport?"

"I went to a few Kings games when I was at Caltech, when friends wanted to go. I was never really much of a sports fan, though. For me it was mostly just something I did to hang out with my dad when I was younger."

"You attended sporting matches together?"

"Um, yeah. Well, sometimes, when he could get tickets. But mostly we watched on TV. Oakland Raiders, Oakland A's. We lived in that area; he was teaching at Stanford. Or sometimes we watched the Denver teams he grew up with."

Lucas nodded but said nothing further.

"So, anyway, you went to Melfort to think, because you were _challenging assumptions_," she said with a pointed look at him, "and not everyone appreciates that. And then SHIELD shows up…and next thing you know you're getting your head and your gall bladder examined for a half-dozen flights down to the South Pole."

He looked down at her, and she could tell he was smiling even underneath his gear. "Essentially."

"You didn't have much time for thinking in Melfort. So you'll be looking for answers about what to do with the rest of your life while you're here?"

"You could say that," he answered after a short pause. She was pretty sure the smile was still there, but something she couldn't put her finger on made her a little uncomfortable. She shook it off, chalking it up to a combination of the height difference and his continued enigmatic answers.

"I guess you could say I am, too, in a way. This is a major opportunity for me, and if I can really make something of it, then hopefully some new doors will open. Maybe I could get back into academia, or a position at a research institute."

"So long as you don't begin your application with 'This is going to sound crazy.'"

He was steadfastly looking forward, but she could definitely see the outline of a smile in his profile now.

"I won't have to, because I'll have the data to back it up by then."

They reached the door of the Dark Sector Lab and Jane opened it up; it seemed a little strange since this space still felt like Selby's and Wright's and not hers, but as Wright had pointed out on the day of their arrival, nothing was locked. They shed their gear and picked up where they'd left off the previous day, and by the time they finished the diagnostics on each piece of equipment Selby and Wright had arrived.

To prepare for linking up her own creations with the equipment already in place, she and Lucas began lugging the devices out to the area underneath the telescope. They made quick progress given that the two largest devices, which she'd assumed would require both of them to awkwardly carry, he was able to carry instead on his own. They were setting down their last load, and Jane collapsing on top of a cleared work table while Lucas stood just to her left partly facing her, when she caught sight of his wrist.

The left sleeve of his dark green shirt had gotten hiked up over his forearm, and a pale red something was peeking out from underneath his watchband. Her first thought was that he'd gotten a piece of red fuzz caught in the clasp. She leaned forward and down and reached for his hand, but just before she touched him he turned further toward her and she realized it was not fuzz. He jerked his hand away and glared down at her with a look that would have made her wither away right then and there if she hadn't already been dying inside of embarrassment.

"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to…I just thought you had caught something in your watchband. I didn't realize-"

"Okay, ready to start getting all this stuff cabled in?" Selby asked, Wright trailing behind him.

Jane could have kissed him. In a platonic, brotherly, married guy kind of way.

Lucas turned away from all of them, and Jane smiled and nodded at Selby, dragging her attention away from her insensitive attempt to reach out and grab what was clearly some kind of burn scar on Lucas's wrist.

/

* * *

/

The day had started off well enough. Jane was reaping the benefits of his treatment in the form of high spirits and an abundance of energy, and just as he'd intended he was, too, in the form of efficient and rapid progress preparing her inventions for use here. She'd been more open, more talkative than yesterday, and for the first time he'd found it less a chore, a task to be undertaken and performed well, and more a…_pleasure_ was much too strong a word, but he'd enjoyed conversing with her.

And then a stupid mistake. He'd been careful to keep his wrist covered with fitted cuffs or slightly overlong sleeves – he didn't want anyone else to see Odin's mark anymore than he wanted to see it himself – but this particular overlong sleeve must have gotten caught on one of her contraptions as he carried it out like her servant. Now he would have to explain it. Or not, and know she was wondering about it. For once he was glad for the Scientist Two's presence; it gave him time to consider his response. He would look at this as an opportunity rather than an inconvenience and capitalize on it, as he always did.

/

* * *

/

Keeping things all business was easy; there was plenty of work to be done. You couldn't just plug things into multi-million dollar pieces of technology, turn on the power, and be done with it. So while Wright and Selby opened up the SPT detector array and inspected it piece by piece to perform a minor calibration, Jane and Lucas worked in tandem to calibrate each piece of her own equipment. He had less experience with this than she expected, but he was a quick learner and was soon able to monitor the results on the computer for the acceptable range of performance variation in the sensors and receivers while she tinkered with the hardware when the results fell outside the acceptable range. The quarters were somewhat tight with all four of them working in the same area, but having the SPT techs nearby was helpful when Jane was ready to link up the next device or ran into some obstacle in the communication between devices.

At lunch Lucas had stayed behind again while Jane, Selby, and Wright walked back to the station, pausing to watch a cargo plane being unloaded along the way, and at around 2:45 all four headed out to watch Su-Ji land an airplane, as Jane thought of it, along with a few other people waiting in the "Arrivals and Departures Lounge," a patch of snow near the end of the runway. Sue herself was clutching two ski poles each topped with a red and black pompom in one gloved hand and talking with one of the fuelies Jane hadn't yet met.

The plane came in a few minutes early, and Sue put her pompoms to use directing it forward on the skiway. Jane laughed at the surreal scene before her. At least it was clear why anyone could direct the plane – all you really had to do was signal it when to stop. And if you somehow messed that up, it wasn't like the pilots were going to crash into the station.

Sue took a bow, and Selby waved Jane back further from the noise of the plane.

"Guess what I found?" he said when they could talk at something approaching a normal volume.

"Do I want to know?"

"A fine piece of scrap wood."

"How nice for you."

"I'm going to tell Carlo to start practicing."

Jane couldn't maintain her straight face anymore and started to laugh.

"And you should tell Lucas to start practicing on that sax," Selby continued. "Wright brought it up again this morning. He's convinced."

"Yeah, good luck with that."

"He's a quiet one, huh?"

Jane shrugged. "He talks to me. Sometimes. Maybe he's just kind of shy." And yet as soon as she'd said that, she knew it wasn't quite right. He wasn't shy. He could be assertive when he wanted to be. He grew quiet in groups, but even that didn't seem exactly like shyness.

"Does he really not know who he works for?"

"SISI?" she asked, wrinkling her brow though Selby probably couldn't see it. "He knows."

"I mean SHIELD. SISI's Tony Stark, you said. And Stark's a big part of SHIELD. So it's more or less the same, right?"

"No," she said immediately. And then her spine returned to its normal posture. "Well, maybe," she allowed. After all, it wasn't SISI's hidden facility she'd been at in Tromso, and it wasn't SISI who Lucas said had come knocking on his door. The Stark Institute for Scientific Innovation made a more palatable public face than the shadowy Strategic Homeland…whatever it stood for. "But anyway, he knows about SHIELD. Just not those other things."

"I don't know how you deal with all the secrecy. It was really getting to me, and when you asked about Caltech…"

"Yeah, I get it. For me the only really hard part is not being able to use all their data. I don't even have _access_ to all their data. Although a lot of it's still being processed. Hopefully I'll get access before long." They wanted Erik to help with that, but he was having difficulty sleeping and in turn difficulty making it through the workday. There were others, of course, but no one knew the tesseract data better than Erik.

"The only hard part? Seriously? Not the Norse god stuff? So-called?"

Jane shook her head. She could talk to those who'd been there about that. But they were dwindling. Darcy was really the only one at this point. Her resolve to follow SHIELD's rules faltered. For better or for worse, though, there wasn't time for it to dissolve; Sue was calling to her. Jane excused herself and slow-jogged over to Sue, who led her out to one of the arched-roof jamesway huts in Summer Camp, which housed the much larger summer population that couldn't all fit in the elevated station.

Sue gave her a quick tour of the unheated building – basically a narrow corridor with small private bedrooms on either side, "private" in the sense that makeshift walls of thin plywood had been put up around each bunk. There was no bathroom; Sue told her that Summer Camp residents had to leave their building and trudge through the snow to a separate outbuilding to reach a bathroom. Jane realized her scramble down from her bed to a bathroom down the hall was the lap of luxury.

"And here we are, ta-da!" Sue said when they stopped at the back of the building and peered into the last room on the right.

Jane grinned at the wide, sturdy-looking two-step footstools. Life here was getting better all the time.

/

* * *

/

Loki watched as Jane and Selby separated themselves from the gathering and drew further away from the plane. He concentrated, amplifying the sound waves coming from their direction, and listened, all while watching the unloading and prepping of the airplane with feigned interest. He considered breaking or transforming the saxophone in the music room so Wright would cease his insistence that he was a "sax man" and should join the little band of entertainers. His eyes narrowed when he heard there were "other things" he didn't know – Jane and Selby were keeping secrets now? But no, the "Norse god stuff" was the secret. Loki smiled at that. He was rather well informed about that supposed secret, and he did so enjoy being referred to as a god.

The smile faded. A god forced to wear the cloak of a mortal. Forced to forego most of his use of magic. Forced to deny all of those things that had made the mortals proclaim his people gods in the first place. His jaw and fists clenched in anger, and his face – had anyone been able to see it – warned of danger. The mortals had proclaimed the _Aesir_ gods. Not his people. _His_ people had tried to subjugate Midgard. And he had followed right in their footsteps, he realized, attempting to succeed with an army of Chitauri and the scepter where his real father with an army of Frost Giants and the Ice Casket had failed so long ago. He'd said it while in prison only to spite Odin, but truly he was Loki Laufeyson.

He bitterly cursed this realm as emotions like bile rose up inside him threatening to spill out and wash him over an edge he'd clung to more times than he cared to count. Only once had he let go, and though he'd seen no other choice at the time, that had not worked out well for him in the end. So he dug in and forced the emotions back down.

With some effort he focused his attention back on the conversation. But there was silence where Jane had been; he feared he may have missed something important while he'd wallowed in a moment of weakness. He turned to look; she had disappeared and Selby stood there alone. Selby saw him looking, and started walking toward him.

Loki stared at him for a moment before looking at the plane again. He knew why _Jane_ knew about Asgard…but how did _Selby_ know? And _what_ exactly did he know? Selby was almost at his side. _Is he connected to SHIELD?_ _Does he know who I am?_ Loki asked himself, something inside him hardening, readying for action.

"Hey, Lucas, I'm freezing. I'm going in the station for some coffee. Wanna join me? Jane's going to be a while, she'll have to take that footstool up to her room," the scientist said.

Loki watched him intently, looking at him with serious interest for the first time. He recalled toying with the man two days ago at lunch, recognizing his insecurity and false bravado. But there had been no guile. Nor was there any now. Whatever Selby thought he knew, he didn't know who he was talking to at this very moment.

"I would love to," Loki said. Selby – and Selby alone on this continent, it seemed – knew what Jane knew, at least some of it. _That_ was why they had formed a quick bond. The afternoon he'd left them alone they'd somehow discovered that connection. If Selby was tied to SHIELD…if he caused Jane to doubt or question Lucas…then Selby was a problem.

* * *

/

_I have mentioned to a few of you that I've written some extensive flashback scenes - just wanted to mention that actually the toboggan one above is not part of that, it was written just for this chapter.  
_

_A word about music: I happened to have bought Kansas's "Dust in the Wind" while writing this chapter, and it occurred to me that there are a couple places in the chapter where that song feels fairly relevant. __Although I don't believe that "all" we are is "dust in the wind," t_he lyrics are about the impermanence of everything on Earth (Midgard!), and can speak to sadness and loss. Here's how it starts if you don't know it already: "I close my eyes / Only for a moment and the moment's gone / All my dreams / Pass before my eyes with curiosity..."

_Thanks as always for your reviews, they are so much appreciated. __And I must give a shout-out to my favorite reviewer of all time, Sarah, a budding writer herself! ;-)_

_And here we go, a couple of teasers for "Chapter 17: Lies": Loki addresses the problem; Jane guesses Lucas has a story or two he doesn't want to tell; Jane gets a few more things in the mail, including one she's not sure she really wants; Jane's world begins to shrink as the station closes for winter.  
_

_And excerpt:  
_

She looked around her, at the jamesways and other Summer Camp buildings, the berms, Cryogenics, all the other buildings out there she still had no idea about, and then in the distance, the Ice Cube Lab and South Pole Telescope and MAPO…for the next nine months this was the extent of her world. _A one-mile radius_, she thought as an unexpected wave of trepidation passed over her.


	18. (17) Lies

_In this chapter and into the next, Loki takes the reins, and things won't be quite the same for Jane afterward.**  
**_

_/  
_

* * *

_"Jealous": Intolerant of rivalry; Hostile toward one enjoying an advantage; Zealously vigilant in guarding a possession_**  
**

_"Jealousy is indeed a poor medium to secure love, but it is a secure medium to destroy one's self-respect. For jealous people, like dope-fiends, stoop to the lowest level and in the end inspire only disgust and loathing." - anarchist Emma Goldman  
_

_"Jealousy fuses megalomania and self-abandonment." - aphorist Mason Cooley  
_

**Beneath**

Chapter Seventeen – Lies

Jane was going to have to figure out how to build a bifrost soon. At times Loki told himself he could keep up this façade and maintain control under the restraints of Odin's curses as long as he needed to. At other times he knew better.

Walking in silence with Selby toward Destination Zulu, now that his attention was neither on Selby's words nor on how he should respond to them, he had noticed that in the time they'd been standing around outside a layer of ice crystals had developed over Selby's neck gaiter around his mouth, and over his eyelashes and eyebrows where he'd removed his goggles. Of course, there were no ice crystals on his own projected balaclava, so with a small motion of his hand and a dip of his head he modified the illusion to add them. As for what his bare face might look like, Loki had no idea because it had gone entirely numb. A great deal had happened between his visits to Jotunheim and this journey to Midgard's South Pole, so he wasn't certain how the cold compared. But if his face had ever gone numb in the land of the Frost Giants he'd been too preoccupied to notice it.

And this was _summer_.

As good as it had felt leaving his room that morning in his own clothing, he was no longer convinced that his indulgence in personal comfort was worth all the problems it created.

They went up the stairs and entered at the second level; as Loki pulled off his jacket to hang it up he hid his head for a moment and pulled away the illusion of the balaclava, hat, and goggles. Selby never noticed, but every time he did this it was a risk.

"Wow, your face is really red. You okay?" Selby asked when he turned away from the coat rack.

"I'm fine. Just a bit flushed." He hoped it was a satisfactory answer; it was what his mother had always said to him when he would turn up pink-faced from the sun or over-exertion.

Selby seemed to think so, since he merely nodded. "Let's go to the lab. Austin and Carlo should be there, and Carlo keeps the coffee fresh. Hope you like it strong."

Loki nodded. He was not overly fond of this drink, but it didn't matter. He hadn't accompanied Selby for the coffee. They turned left, past the galley, medical, and the computer lab, then across the divide from Pod A to Pod B.

"So what do you think of the South Pole so far, Lucas?" Selby asked as they approached the entrance to the Science Lab.

"So far…I would say it's cold."

"I'm trying to convince myself it's warm," he said with a laugh. "So winter won't be such a shock."

"And is that working?"

"Mmmm…not really. No, I can't say that it is."

"It's…an impressive facility. Especially the telescopes."

Selby nodded. "It's pretty amazing. Sometimes I still can hardly believe I'm here. It was kind of last-minute. Not as last-minute as you, though. Jane told me you had a week's notice. You want cream or sugar?"

Loki accepted a red mug full of steaming coffee and took one sugar packet. Selby rolled his chair around toward Loki and sat; Loki followed his lead and pulled up another chair. He couldn't stop a quick sigh of relief to be off his right foot after standing on it for so long. Selby was waiting, so Loki began the tale of how he'd wound up at the South Pole, substituting Stark's research foundation for SHIELD as needed to maintain the secret inside the lie. In the meantime he began to sip his coffee and was surprised to find it much better than what he'd had during his previous visit to this realm.

Conversation turned to Christchurch, and while Loki let Selby do most of the talking, he shared a few of his own memories and observations as well.

Mugs empty, Selby suggested they head back out and started to lift himself up from his chair.

Loki leaned forward in his and put out an uncertain hand. "Actually, if you don't mind, there's something I wanted to mention to you."

"What?" Selby asked, settling back down.

"I noticed…this is awkward." He broke eye contact with Selby and stared down at his mug.

"What?" Selby repeated after a moment.

Loki could hear the nervousness in his voice. He lowered his own voice – Austin and Carlo were in the room, but not nearby – and explained. "It's just…I've noticed you've been spending a lot of time with Jane."

"Uh, I guess so. Not just her, but sure. What's…is there…"

"I'm not the only one who's noticed. I heard…well, I heard some talk," he said with a grimace that showed his discomfort over the words when he lifted his face back toward Selby.

Selby's eyes drifted to the side. His eyebrows knitted and inhaled and exhaled deeply. "Talk…that there's something going on between me and Jane?"

"Speculation, I suppose," Loki allowed with a small shrug.

Again he inhaled and exhaled deeply. "There isn't. Anything between me and Jane, I mean. We're just friends. Barely even that, I mean, I hardly know her. We went to the same grad school and we- We're just friends."

Loki nodded sympathetically. "I understand. But if there _were_…something…you're a long way from home, and it must be difficult for such a new young couple to be apart from each other for so long without looking for a little comfort elsewhere."

Selby set his jaw and sat up straighter, his eyes centering back on Loki. "There's nothing going on. Really. I know I was joking around earlier, but I love my wife. I would never be unfaithful to her. No matter how far away she is."

Loki nodded again. "Of course. I'm sorry to have mentioned it. I just thought you should know."

"Yeah, well…thanks, I guess. I could really do without being the star of the rumor mill." He continued after a moment. "Have you mentioned this to Jane?"

"Of course not," Loki said, shaking his head firmly. "That would be even _more_ awkward."

"Okay. Um, maybe don't mention it, then, if you don't mind. I'm sure it would just worry her. Or make her think that I- Yeah, just don't mention it. Please?"

"I won't." _You can trust me, Selby Higgins_,Loki thought, grinning on the inside yet easily projecting Lucas's sympathy and solidarity. This was second-nature to him. A variation on a play he'd enacted countless times across the centuries. This young mortal was a laughably easy target.

The men stood to leave without another word on the subject, but Loki noticed that Selby threw a glance over his shoulder at the photo of his smiling wife. And in that glance was worry.

Loki asked about Selby's snowmobile training at McMurdo and kept the mortal engaged in conversation all the way through the station to their gear, out DZ and along the trail marked by the red flags to the Dark Sector Lab. Selby was clearly unfocused, responding almost mechanically, with occasional bursts of enthusiasm attempting to mask his distraction. Loki entertained himself by trying to guess what bothered him more – what people here were saying about him and Jane or whether his wife back home was able to make the same declaration of undying faithfulness that he was.

/

* * *

/

"Where'd you guys go off to?" Jane asked when Lucas and Selby returned. She had been sitting at her desk in the Dark Sector Lab, watching data stream past on her computer screen.

"We went inside for some coffee," Selby said.

She nodded. "The cold really sinks into your bones when you just stand around out there. But while you two were inside relaxing, Wright helped me finish getting my instruments set up outside."

"All of them?" Lucas asked.

"Every last one. It didn't take long, we'd already run most of the checks. Quick and easy. Wright's already back there inspecting something else on the detector array. And _I_," she paused, turning back to the computer and pointing toward the steady flow of jagged lines that looked like several dozen heartbeats, "have been checking out my very first South Pole data." She couldn't keep the pride from her voice.

Lucas peered closer and narrowed his eyes; Selby nodded and smiled, but the smile seemed a little distant. Neither one of them was sufficiently excited.

"Of course I'll have to start running this through all of the software for analysis," she added.

"You'll get better data when the temperatures drop," Selby said.

Jane nodded, disappointed. It felt almost like criticism. It was just a bunch of squiggly lines anyway; you couldn't look at it and tell whether it was good data or bad data. You could just tell that it was data. From equipment she'd built herself. And she knew the data would be better the colder it got. That was one of the reasons she'd been so eager to come here.

"When will you start showing me how to interpret your data?" Lucas asked after a moment.

Her eyebrows went up. "Well…I guess we can start tomorrow morning. I should have some results from the analysis software by then. A lot of it will be familiar to you, I'm sure, but I have a couple of my own programs, too. Mine in the sense that some people I know generously came up with them for me. Software's not my thing."

"It's not mine, either," Lucas agreed. "I would appreciate your showing me even the ones I'm familiar with. I'd like to learn how _you_ look at them and apply them to your data."

"Okay, sure."

Selby cleared his throat. "I, uh, I should probably go see if Wright needs any help," he said.

Jane nodded and he headed out into the corridor toward the telescope side of the building.

"So," Lucas began, resting a long arm casually across the top of a bookcase. "What do we do now?"

She leaned back in her chair and sighed. _Good question._ "There's not much more we _can_ do until we start getting results in. I can't wait to start digging into it…but there's nothing to dig into yet. Everything's set up and hooked up and all the data streams are working. And everything's being recorded onto servers. That's all for now. Tomorrow feels like it's a long way away." _Only a day away_, she thought with a wry smile as the lyrics popped into her mind out of nowhere.

"If we're done for the day, then may I ask you a question?"

"Sure," she said with a shrug.

"What led you to pursue this field of study? I know you said your father was a physicist. But you could have easily followed your mother into anthropology instead. Or taken a different path entirely. Why this?" he asked, leaning against the bookcase and gesturing around him with his hand.

"When you put it like that, it seems almost like an impossible question," she answered.

"Why?"

"Because…it's almost like you're asking about destiny." And while Jane did sometimes think about destiny, she found the concept made her mind run in loops. She couldn't even decide if she believed in it or not, or if she thought it was a good thing or a bad thing. And if it were real, could you break free from it if you decided it was bad – in general or your particular instantiation of it – or were you bound to it without recourse? She let out a short laugh. "You did say you read philosophy for fun. Maybe you can teach me a thing or two. The only time I ever really kind of _got _philosophy, sort of, was once when I wrote a class paper that tied philosophy in to science. Or science fiction, maybe.

"Anyway, why astrophysics. It's true my dad was a physicist and exposed me to that, but long before that, as far back as I can remember, I always loved looking up at the stars. We would go camping sometimes when I was a kid, and in the daytime it was all about swimming and hiking and canoeing, and then at night I'd never want to go to bed because I just wanted to stay up and stargaze. I can remember sitting on my dad's lap while he held on to my arm and guided it through the sky, pointing out each star and constellation until I knew them all by heart. And I don't really know how to explain it but I always knew they _meant_ something. Something more than just lights in the sky.

"So I don't know. I don't really have any explanation for why one field and not another drew me to it so early on. It just did."

"Any regrets?"

Jane stared for a moment, then shifted positions, crossing her arms over her chest. "Everybody has regrets," she said softly.

"I mean about your career choice. Given the obstacles you've faced."

"Honestly? I don't think I've ever looked back. Too stubborn, I guess," she said with a little laugh. "But what about you? You've faced the same obstacles."

Lucas took an audible breath. "Everybody has regrets, Jane."

His gaze was intense, enough so that Jane was the one to break it and glance back at her computer for a moment. "How did you wind up studying astrophysics?" she asked, looking back at him only in the end.

"I made my own path. My father runs a family business, and I didn't want to be a part of it. So I pursued something else. I too grew up gazing at the stars and wondering what was out there. I decided I would find out."

Jane smiled at that. _This _was the presumptuous Lucas who had knocked on her door in Christchurch, presumptuous in a way that fit in with her slowly growing understanding of him, as though all the answers were there for the taking if you merely stated your intention to take them. That way was not so different from how she herself felt. The stubborn persistence that she believed she saw in him was certainly in her as well.

Her eyes were drawn for a moment to his left wrist, hanging at his side, but she quickly looked away. "Hey, by the way, I'm really sorry about this morning. I didn't mean to grab for you like that."

"Apology accepted."

"What happened?"

"I was burned," he answered immediately.

Jane swallowed, nodded. She'd guessed that much already. His tone was neutral, casual, but the words nonetheless somehow had an edge to them. Probably he was self-conscious about the scar. If there was a story to tell, he could tell it. She decided she wouldn't ask any further questions about it, though.

"Well, there isn't anything more to do here and it's dinnertime anyway. You wanna go? You must be starving," she added, recalling he'd skipped lunch again.

He gave an almost imperceptible tilt of his head, which she chose to interpret as agreement, so she swiveled around in her chair to log off the computer.

They went through the cluttered corridor across the building and found Selby and Wright still tinkering with the detector array, Wright with a pair of wire cutters in his left hand.

"You guys about done for the day?" Jane asked.

"Almost," Wright announced.

"No need to wait, though. You two go ahead if you're ready," Selby said.

"Yeah, we'll lock up," Wright added.

"Uh-huh," Jane said with a nod. "You do that, Wright. Shall we then?" She turned toward Lucas.

"After you, Jane," he said, with a slow, deep nod and outstretched arm.

Jane looked at him curiously for a moment. There was something oddly familiar in the formality of the gesture, something she couldn't put her finger on, and she felt an inexplicable giggle bubbling up inside her. She pressed her lips together, smiled, and headed back into the corridor; giggling somehow seemed rather inappropriate.

They got the outer layer of their gear back on and headed out. The wind had picked up, sending the wind chill plummeting, and Jane pulled her hood up over her head as they walked back to the station in silence. _Longer legs_, she thought with a glance over at Lucas, _would be helpful right about now_. And poor Lucas was having to slow his gait because of her.

Her thoughts wandered back to the burn on his wrist, and to the handful of times she'd burned herself working with homemade instruments badly enough to leave marks. A small rough spot on her right palm and a roundish red mark just below the crook of her right elbow were apparently permanent reminders.

Jane's gaze grew unfocused and she soon tripped over her own two feet in the bulky boots, now hard like blocks of wood beneath her soles. She recovered and continued on; Lucas had paused a few steps ahead to wait for her to catch up.

She knew now why what Lucas had said about his scar bothered her, why the words had sounded off somehow. When you got burned by something, you said _I burned myself_. _I was burned_ meant something else entirely. It meant some_one_ had burned you.

Jane shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. _It doesn't _have_ to mean that_, she thought. And as little as Lucas said about himself, she figured she was unlikely to ever learn the truth.

/

* * *

/

Over the next two days Jane went through all of the data analysis programs she was running on the data collected through her own instruments. She found Lucas a conundrum. One minute she could swear he'd never heard of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles, and the next he would ask which of her devices would best capture their decay. He seemed to enjoy provoking her in some strange way, and she was never sure whether he was just pretending not to know certain things to get her to explain them for whatever reason, or whether he'd actually slept through some of his lectures and taken his reading assignments as multiple choice. It didn't really matter; she didn't mind explaining. It was helpful for her as well, talking through what the software could and couldn't do, reminding herself of all the various ways of looking at the data that fed into the analysis programs. She would be collecting far more data here than she would be able to go through in real time, and as the initial results came in she would need to sift through them and decide which pieces of the puzzle to focus on very quickly.

They worked late on Saturday, staying out at the DSL in case any problems crept up with the instruments, and they barely made it back in time for dinner. The supper crowd had dwindled; they wound up sitting with Sue, the first time Jane had seen her in the galley.

"You're running out of time to marshal an airplane, Jane. No flights on Sunday. Monday's your last chance," Sue said.

Jane nodded; she knew. Monday was the 15th. Station closing. Last flight. There was something thrilling about it. You weren't really a winterover, your adventure not truly begun, until that last airplane took off. But there was also something ominous about it, the other side of the coin of a thrill, the vague sense of danger, much like a ride on a roller coaster. Tiny though the risk may be, people _had_ gotten injured and seriously ill here during the winter, beyond what could normally be treated in medical, and fire or power interruption _could_ happen. But Jane understood those risks, understood all the precautions that were taken to prevent them. And she liked roller coasters.

"I talked to Terrence today," she said. Terrence was one of the fuelies, the people who transferred the jet fuel to and from the planes that landed at the Pole. "He's going to let me do the passenger flight."

"Yeah? Okay. But did he insist on props?"

"Mm-hm," Jane breathed, savoring a bite of carrot. The main dish was lasagna, but the carrots were the best part of the meal – they were fresh, and that wouldn't last much longer. "And I've got a great idea. I just need something Iong and tube-shaped."

"PVC piping?"

"That would be perfect!"

"What size?"

Jane held her hands out, imagining herself holding the objects she wanted to create. She gave Sue the rough dimensions and Sue promised to bring the pipes in from another outbuilding that night after she came back in from work. Jane decided if she needed to find absolutely anything at the South Pole she knew who to go to, and said so.

"And what are these props you're planning to use?" Lucas asked, having finished his meal already.

"You'll see. It's a surprise."

"Bring your camera," Sue advised. "I'll get a picture for you."

A few minutes later Jane excused herself to go do laundry. She hoped Lucas and Sue would make friends; he didn't seem to talk much to anyone except her. She was glad he had gone for coffee with Selby that day, although she realized she hadn't seen much of Selby since then, which meant Lucas probably hadn't seen much of him either. It would get pretty lonely here for Lucas if he only had her to talk to the whole nine months. Even if he did seem like a bit of a loner, the circumstances here were extreme.

Putting her orange ECW gear bag back to work as a laundry bag, Jane turned into the laundry room on the first level and found Selby pulling clothes out of one of the washing machines.

They exchanged greetings as she walked around checking the machines. "Good timing on my part. All the other machines are in use."

"Yeah, I think it'll get a little easier once the rest of the summer people have left," he said, tossing his damp clothes into a plastic bin.

"You aren't going to dry them?" Jane asked.

"Little tip I learned," he said with a grin. "Dry them on a line in your room. Helps with the humidity, at least a little bit. And it doesn't take them long to dry."

Eyebrows raised, Jane nodded. The humidity in the Sahara Desert was 11%. At the South Pole it was 4%. Cherry-flavored Chapstick had already become her constant companion and shea butter hand lotion a part of her nightly routine. "That's a great idea."

"I can- well, Wright can show you where to get some tough string you can use for a line, and there's clothespins down in skua," he said, referring to the collection of items left behind by previous Polies, named for some reason for an Antarctic sea bird.

Jane sighed with pleasure, imagining waking up to a humid tropical paradise instead of a cracked lip like she had this morning. Damp clothes weren't going to give off _that _much moisture, but there was nothing wrong with daydreams.

"Hey, I haven't seen you around so much the last couple of days," she said as Selby was about to leave.

He paused in the doorway. "Uh, yeah. Just busy, you know. Oh, why, did you need something? Any problems at the DSL?"

"No, no," she said, shaking her head. "Everything's going pretty smoothly, and Lucas is getting up to speed."

"Oh, okay. Well, I'm going to go get these hung up. I'll see you later, okay?"

"Sure, see you later." Jane's eyes lingered on the door after he left. He wasn't acting quite like himself, she thought. But then, she'd known him for less than a week, who was she to say what was himself and what wasn't? Besides, he'd been one newbie looking out for the even newer newbies when she and Lucas had first arrived – maybe now he was simply shifting his focus back to his work. And maybe he'd gotten over his initial intrigue and was more interested in galaxy clusters and less in Asgard.

Whatever was or wasn't going on with Selby, the laundry wasn't going to do itself. She pulled her clothes out of the orange bag and put them into the machine, added a scoop of Tide, closed the door, and got the machine going. Leaving the bag on the table in the middle of the room, she repeated the trek she'd been making each evening since the e-mail from Darcy saying she'd sent her a package. She didn't have far to go from the laundry room; just down the hall was the day's delivery, larger than the previous days', and this time she was in luck.

With an unabashed squeal of delight she snatched up a large box with her name on it, only to find Erik Selvig as the return addressee. She smiled and furrowed her brow, feeling happy like a kid again to get a package from him, but at the same time sad and kind of guilty that in his emotional turmoil he'd taken time out to buy something for her and mail it to the South Pole. She decided when she left here she'd convince Erik to go away somewhere relaxing with her, where he could talk about what Thor's brother had done to him, or everything but that, or nothing at all, and she would simply wait, ready to listen to him as he had been for her after her parents died. Maybe Tony Stark's Malibu place. She knew Tony wouldn't object.

Poking through the rest of the cargo delivery, she found the box from Darcy, smaller than the one from Erik. On the off chance that who-knew-who-else had sent her something, she went through the rest of the boxes. She recognized a lot of the recipients' names now, and was excited for Rodrigo to see he'd gotten something, but that was it for her.

She bounded up the stairs – and was thrilled to reach the top and realize she'd "bounded" and wasn't out of breath – and hurried back to her room to open the packages. Ripping into Darcy's first, she found soft cream-colored cloth on top, and when she pulled it out she realized it was a folded flannel sheet. She rubbed her hand against it, turned it over, saw the crocheted lace edging that made her eyebrows go up. Sheets like that deserved to be on something nicer than the black metal frame bed she was sleeping on, but they would definitely bring some class – and comfortable warmth – to what otherwise reminded her an awful lot of her college dorm room.

Under the sheet was a knit cap, ice blue except for a white ring around the edge, a white circle on top, and a white knit bow on the side. Probably not as warm as the ones she'd gotten from the CDC, but definitely much cuter. Jane pulled it on and hopped up from her desk to admire it with a smile. She'd have to take a picture in it outside and send it to Darcy.

She sat down again and reached back in the box for the book, lying on top of the rest of the sheet set. "_The Complete Guide to Norse Mythology_," she read out loud, then sighed. It didn't matter how hard she tried to leave all this behind for a while. First Lucas, then Selby, now more of this craziness. She'd read through some of the book Erik had borrowed from the library, a children's book with lots of big pictures and brief descriptions of the figures the Vikings had believed to be gods. Initially fascinating, the weird-factor had crept up until she didn't want to read it anymore. She could have done without knowing that the guy that made her heart flutter had a day of the week named after him.

She flipped randomly through pages in the book. Fewer pictures, and these were images of paintings and engravings, not artists' drawings for children. So the guy that made her heart flutter had a painting of him in the British Museum. Great. She opened the bottom drawer of her desk and dropped the book in. She knew she'd have to at least look at whatever Darcy found so entertaining on page 38 before she wrote to her and thanked her for the gifts. It was beyond sweet of her to send these things. The sheets were soft and beautiful, the hat was adorable, and the book…well, it was the thought that counted. Jane wanted the person she'd met in Puente Antiguo, not medieval Viking stories about him and his family. Thor could tell her those stories himself. Maybe. Someday.

She frowned and shook her head, trying to clear the rising emotion. There was no point in getting worked up about things you couldn't change. She closed the drawer, then pulled out the other sheet and pillowcase from the box. A single sheet of paper, torn from a notebook, was left at the bottom. _Who says flannel can't be pretty?_ the short note said. Followed by _Read page 38!_ and _Love ya! Darcy._ "Okay, okay," Jane acquiesced with a laugh. "But not right now." She still had another box, and laundry.

Erik, Jane found, had sent her a deep sapphire blue down comforter – she suspected he had coordinated with Darcy – an orange Caltech-logoed Snuggie that had her laughing hysterically, and something far less warm and cozy but even more practical and precious: a humidifier. It was already out of its packaging and Jane set it up and plugged it in right away, pouring in water straight from a fresh Nalgene bottle. Her dorm room was fast turning into a palace and though she wasn't tired she could hardly wait for bedtime. She'd intended to be social that evening, maybe go see the movie showing in the gym, but curling up in bed with the rose book was sounding like heaven on earth.

/

* * *

/

Jane slept late on Sunday morning and didn't go down to the galley until nearly 9:30, dressed in jeans and her blue Australia T-shirt. The station was a little cooler than she would keep her own thermostat, but not cold, and she was getting used to it. She grabbed a package of strawberry Pop-Tarts and a cup of coffee and dropped into a chair at one of the long tables with Lucas, Rodrigo, and Austin. "Breakfast of champions," she said as she set her tray down, laughing at her private joke.

"How are you this morning, Jane?" Lucas asked.

"Fabulous. You?"

"Well, thank you."

Jane wrinkled her nose at the lasagna Rodrigo was eating. "For breakfast?" she asked, pointing at the leftovers on his plate.

"Lunch," he said shaking his head, and she remembered his schedule was ahead of theirs. Austin was polishing off an English muffin and Lucas had only coffee. Sunday was the station's day off, and that included the kitchen staff.

"When do you want to start work today, Jane?" Lucas asked during a lull in conversation a few minutes later.

"Maybe-"

"Hey, the correct answer to that question is 'Monday.' You new guys come in here and think you can work 24-7. You'll burn out. Seriously. I saw it happen to a guy last year. Take your day off. Relax, have some fun."

Jane glanced between Rodrigo and Lucas; Lucas looked annoyed. As grantees rather than contract staff, Jane and Lucas could work whatever schedule they wanted, but the rational side of her knew Rodrigo was right. She should take a break, and it was convenient enough to take that break at the same time as everyone else.

"Me and Rodrigo and a couple others are going to make a bunch of pizzas tonight for dinner, wanna join us?" Austin asked.

"Yeah? Well…okay, sure, why not? Sounds fun."

"Change your mind, Lucas?"

"No, thank you. I've got some reading to do," he answered. Jane surmised they'd already asked him.

As the day progressed, Jane resisted the urge to run down to the Science Lab and see what latest results the software had returned, knowing she would never be able to keep it to a quick peek. Instead, she got in some cycling time on the stationary bike in the gym, chatted with fuelie Terrence in the wonderfully humid greenhouse sitting area, helped clear snow from the emergency stairs outside her berthing wing, got her PVC pipes from Sue and prepared her plane-marshalling props in the arts and crafts room, sent some e-mails, and made pizza after pizza with a small group of fellow volunteers in the kitchen.

After dinner she headed to her room and saw Selby emerging from his, across from Lucas's. "Hey," she called, "hold on! I have to show you something." She hurried into her room and grabbed the Caltech Snuggie.

She thought Selby might have followed, but he stood there in the hallway, still closer to his door than hers. She trotted back out and held out the giant whatever-it-was.

He took it and opened it up before his face broke into a smile. "Oh. That's great, I didn't know they made these, with the logos."

"Me either. A friend sent it. I just got it yesterday in a cargo delivery."

"Good friend."

"Very good friend," she agreed. And then they just stood there, and Jane wondered why she suddenly felt so awkward. "Is everything okay?" she asked.

"What?" he asked, as though she'd startled him. "Oh, sure, yeah. I'm sorry. Really. I'm just kind of distracted. But, uhhh, hey, I'll see you tomorrow at breakfast, okay?" He handed the Snuggie back to her.

"Okay," she said, shrugging and returning to her room once he'd continued past.

/

* * *

/

Jane stood in front of the taxiing LC-130 holding a PVC pipe in each hand, one swathed in iridescent green wrapping paper and the other in iridescent red, both wrapped with black electrical tape at the bottom to make a handle. She crossed her mock lightsabers at the right moment per instruction, and the plane came to a halt. A large crowd had gathered – the last of the summer crowd with their carry-on bags looking much as Jane had a week ago, and the winterovers coming out to see off the last passenger flight of the season – and some of them were applauding. Jane turned around grinning as Sue continued snapping pictures with her camera.

The show was over; it was cold. Jane dropped the lightsabers for a moment and pulled out the hat Darcy had sent, tugging it down onto her head and over her best effort at Princess Leia braids, coiled above her ears. Nope, not as warm as the CDC's stuff. She pulled up Big Red's hood, grabbed the lightsabers and accepted her camera back, then walked back into the sea of red and occasional black or brown. Someone touched her shoulder and she turned around to see Wright holding up a hand for a high-five, which she met with a grin. "Help me, Jane Foster, you're my only hope!" he shouted with a gloved palm over his heart. She rolled her eyes and turned back toward the plane.

Two passengers bundled in red disembarked – Jane knew one of them was the winter doctor – along with the crew. The fuelies got to work, cargo was unloaded, and handshakes and hugs were exchanged. Jane looked for Dr. Brissett, but couldn't find him in the mass of people, some 60 or 70 individuals who for the most part looked alike out here, bundled up as they were.

She didn't really know any of the other people departing, but watching them board the plane still brought on some rather strange and intense feelings. It made her think back to that first day of being dropped off at Space Camp, her first away-from-family experience, the moment when it hit her that her parents were really-really leaving and she would be on her own and have to make friends with all these strangers. She was glad it worked out that she was on the _next-to-last_ passenger flight instead of the last; she'd already made friends, already knew her way around.

She looked around her, at the jamesways and other Summer Camp buildings, the berms, Cryogenics, all the other buildings out there she still had no idea about, and then in the distance, the Ice Cube Lab and South Pole Telescope and MAPO…for the next nine months this was the extent of her world. _A one-mile radius_, she thought as an unexpected wave of trepidation passed over her.

And then she looked up. And smiled. _A one-mile radius on the ground_. It was another story entirely out in the cosmos.

The plane took off. The crowd dispersed. And just like that it was winter. Not really, not technically. The sun was still up and low, noticeably lower than when she'd first arrived. But it was winter nonetheless. Everyone here was in for the long haul, and no one else was coming.

Trying to shake the last of the anxiety, Jane started to walk out toward the dark sector. Lucas – or at least a tall slender figure who really could only have been Lucas – fell into step beside her, and they continued on in silence until they reached the DSL and shed their outer layers. Jane changed her mind about the hat and pulled it back on; Princess Leia braids felt a bit goofy sans lightsabers.

She took a quick look through the building; Wright and Selby weren't there. "Did you see Selby outside?" Jane asked when she returned to the lab and found Lucas settled in at his desk.

He turned to look at her. "No."

"Hm. I saw Wright…I guess they went back to the station."

"Probably," Lucas agreed, looking up at her with a slight frown.

Jane frowned back at him; he looked like he was worried about something. "What?"

"Jane…sit down."

Her frown deepened, but she grabbed her own desk chair and sat down to face him. "Okaaaayyy…"

He took a breath before speaking. "There's something I haven't been entirely honest with you about."

* * *

/

_Reviews/questions/comments welcome and appreciated as always!_

_This chapter and the next kick off the next stage of this story. What's Loki going to tell Jane? There's a lot to choose from, he hasn't been entirely honest with her about much of anything...and why start now? But it's something that he believes will help him reach his goal.  
_

_A few teasers: Loki clears up his lack of honesty with Jane (yeah, right); Thor is pushed toward confronting Vanaheim's king and his own promises; Jane begins to feel a little rebellious._

_An excerpt - hard to choose one this time, and this one I think must come off as rather enigmatic, so completely void of context:_

"I know this isn't easy for you. I know you and he were close."

_Close_. The word was almost offensive, ringing out like an empty goblet clattering against a table. Thor had servants he was _close_ to. He had only one brother. "I've answered all of your questions," he finally recovered enough to say. "You still haven't answered mine."


	19. (18) Isolation

**Beneath**

Chapter Eighteen – Isolation

"Five full days."

"Yes. Longer than on Jotunheim," Bragi agreed.

"You have to speak to King Gullveig," Volstagg said.

The council hall erupted.

Thor stood, watching them, some seated at the long table, others, like himself, unable to remain seated any longer.

He turned to his mother, seated peacefully in the chair nearest his. "Has there been no sign? No change?" he asked quietly, so that she alone heard over the din. He asked every day, usually more than once.

She shook her head just enough for him to see her answer, the same one she patiently gave every time he asked, even as the days stretched on and her patience frayed.

Thor pinched the bridge of his nose as the shouting grew louder. Heimdall had informed him that the delegation from Svartalfheim had finally left Vanaheim, but from there had gone to Alfheim. No one yet knew what it meant, but Heimdall's continued inability to hear anything that was said made it difficult to believe anything but the worst. Thor had called a meeting of all of his father's closest advisors – he could still not think of them as _his_ advisors although that was effectively what they were – along with the Warriors Three, Sif, and his mother.

"Thor!" a deep and resonant voice shouted from the far end of the table. It was Tyr, his father's most capable warrior in the time of the Jotun War and quite possibly Asgard's most experienced military strategist other than Odin himself. Thor had called him back the day before from what was essentially his retirement.

Once the room fell silent he continued. "You cannot risk waiting any longer. Svartalfheim is planning something they wish to conceal. And while it may yet turn out to be something benign, we cannot ignore that they went first to Jotunheim. If it is not benign, then we are being surrounded while we stand here and argue."

All eyes turned from Tyr to Thor, who clenched his jaw. Tyr had voiced his opinion bluntly, more so than anyone else here had, as though he were a child in need of his elder's guidance. Yet even as anger flared in him at those words, and the implication that he was endangering Asgard in his attempts to act with unfamiliar prudence, he recalled that it was not that long ago when his own father had accused him of being no more than a boy. He could not complain about receiving guidance. He _did_ need it.

And Tyr was right. _Surrounded_. He had never thought of it quite like that before. And judging from the continued silence, no one else had either. "I agree, Tyr. We must approach Vanaheim. But what if their scheme is to draw me away while the All-Father still sleeps?"

"Then we will do what we must to act in your stead. You will need to appoint someone to speak for you. For the All-Father."

Thor nodded, accepting without further thought that he would indeed go to Vanaheim even though his father had not yet woken. _Now if only Loki-_ But no. Loki wasn't here. And even if he were, he certainly couldn't be left in any position of authority. By the time Thor returned, Loki would have figured out how to use the tesseract to destroy what was left of Jotunheim, bringing to gruesome life the games they'd played as children and even into adulthood in which they re-enacted the Jotun War in countless variations, few of them ending with a truce. Thor's head swam every time he tried to understand what had happened to his brother, but he knew that years upon years of carrying out mock wars on the creatures whose blood he shared, the creatures they'd called monsters, hadn't been good for him. If only they'd known…

Thor dragged himself out of the past. Loki was out of the picture for the time being and that was that. It was probably for the best. He looked around him, and his eyes fell on the two he had turned to most since Asgard was left in his hands. Volstagg, a veteran warrior and close friend, older than Thor and somewhat tempered but still prone to brash action. Bragi, with a historian's knowledge of the nine realms and a gift with words and reason but prone to thinking and talking at the expense of action when needed. He called on them both to work together to deal with any problems that may come up in his absence.

Then he turned to his mother. "Should you be unable to agree on a course of action, you will present your arguments to my mother, and she will decide. Her word as queen of Asgard will be final."

She looked up in surprise, opened her mouth to speak but closed it again with a nod. By Asgardian custom and her own inclination, Frigga had rarely taken on any role of authority in ruling the realm, but Thor knew her to be strong and wise and perfectly capable of doing so if needed. He also knew she preferred to stay by Odin's side as he slept rather than sit on his throne, either literally or figuratively. He was grateful that she accepted his compromise.

"Tyr, whatever time you can give to aid this council-"

"You have it all, my lord. For Asgard," he said, pressing his fist to his chest and bowing.

"Thank you," Thor said, relieved both for the millennia of experience Tyr could provide, and the reassurance that this man to whom he _was_ a mere boy did not intend to challenge his authority after all. Thor had enough to deal with.

/

* * *

/

Sif and the Warriors Three insisted on joining him, but in the end Thor approached the gleaming white marble palace on Vanaheim alone. This was not Jotunheim, and it was not Laufey. Gullveig was an acquaintance, if not precisely a friend, of Odin. Thor had known him since his tenth birthday celebration, which Gullveig had attended and where he'd offered a toast to the young prince's long life and eventual rule.

Thor had in turn traveled to Vanaheim hundreds of times over the years, many of them following this same grand tree-lined avenue to the palace. He could not recall a retinue of Vanir guards falling into step in a loose cordon around him on any of those prior visits.

"I come to seek an audience with King Gullveig," Thor sternly told the guard standing in front of the palace gate. It wasn't until the words were out that he remembered he should moderate his tone.

The guard merely bowed his head, and when he straightened the gate shimmered and vanished.

Thor nodded and walked past him; the front door opened before him, unguarded, while the men in blue and gold, each with a sword sheathed on his back, filed in behind him. He ignored them and thought of his father instead as he walked a familiar path through the palace. Odin conveyed his strength through his mere presence and bearing; he did not sound stern or show anger until a line had been crossed. No lines had been crossed here. _No lines _will_ be crossed here_, Thor thought in an order to himself, the journey to Jotunheim still fresh in his memory.

He repeated his intention to meet with the king to the sole guard outside the door to the throne room; this guard likewise bowed his head and the door behind him disappeared. Gullveig knew he was coming.

This throne room was smaller, less opulent than Asgard's. The hall was still long, but much narrower, and lined by enchanted trees that mimicked the approach to the palace. As he walked steadily through the hall and the guards again formed that loose cordon around him, he felt Gullveig's stare even before he could truly recognize the man's form on the throne.

Thor dropped to one knee but kept his head up, his eyes on Gullveig's.

"Thor Odinson. Where _is_ the one who gave you your name?"

"It is good to see you again, Your Majesty," Thor said, rising. Stalling. He hadn't expected so formal a reception. And he hadn't thought through the answer to that question, whether he should admit to the vulnerability of his father and thus of Asgard. He decided on a half-truth. "He remains on Asgard. He rules."

"He does not rule," Gullveig responded immediately, impassive in his flowing white robes. "He sleeps."

Thor's jaw tightened. Caught. In an instant he regretted every complaint he'd ever made when his father had tried to get him to observe and learn those things about being king other than fighting wars. _The boring parts_, he used to call it. "He sleeps," he agreed, recovering his composure. "And yet he rules. He will awaken."

"And you act in his stead."

"I do."

"Then speak."

Thor hesitated, glancing around him. "Forgive me, Your Majesty. I'm not sure how to speak. This" – he swept his arms around him at the guards standing at attention – "is not the greeting I expected from one I have known all my life." He was careful to keep a smile on his face, and hoped it appeared friendly and not threatening.

"You seek my audience and you bring a weapon. What did you expect?"

There was a moment of confusion before Thor glanced down at Mjolnir. He couldn't specifically remember, but he was certain he had come to Vanaheim with Mjolnir before and he knew he had never been questioned about it. He had wielded the hammer for so long that unless he was actively using it he saw it less as a weapon and more as almost an extension of himself. "I meant no offense. I shall return to Asgard and leave it there before coming back to again seek your audience."

Thor began to drop to his knee again, but Gullveig put out a hand. "Or you can simply leave it outside this hall."

He hesitated, but only briefly, before nodding and crossing the length of the throne room in long strides; the blue- and gold-clad guards did not follow him this time, he noted. The door vanished for him as he approached. He eyed the guard who stood on the other side of it, then set the hammer down with a thud by the wall just outside the door. As soon as he was again inside the throne room the door reappeared between him and Mjolnir. He promptly returned to his position before the unexpectedly austere king.

Gullveig waved his hand and the guards turned their backs to the central hall, then walked through walls that shimmered around them. Thor watched out of the corner of his eye; he hadn't known those walls were enchanted the same as the doors.

"Now. What brings you here unannounced, Thor?"

He relaxed just a bit at the use of his first name, even though his hand now felt uncomfortably empty. "I believe you must have guessed already, Your Majesty. Heimdall has seen that a senior delegation of dark elves has gone to first Jotunheim, then to your court, and now to Alfheim. But they've hidden their speech from him by some unknown means," Thor said, biting down on the sides of his tongue to hold back the question – the demand – that was so close to following.

"Have we no right to privacy? Should Heimdall follow me to all my meetings? To my dinner table? Even to my own chambers?"

"Of course not," Thor shot back. He took a deep breath and lowered his volume. "You know he only watches what he must to protect our realm. And _yours_," he added pointedly.

"Does either of our realms currently need protecting?" Gullveig asked, leaning forward as his pitch rose at the end.

Thor sucked in a breath, flexed his empty right hand. He would not – he _could_ not – rise to this bait. "These are unusual events. We are concerned."

"As well you should be," the king said, his taunting expression turning hard. He leaned back into his cushioned gold-inlaid wooden throne.

Thor watched him in silence for a moment, swallowing heavily. He found himself longing for Loki to be at his side; somehow he always seemed to know what to say. Loki had actually _liked_ "the boring parts," and complained when he'd been left out of them. "We are _allies_, Gullveig. Why…" But there was no polite way to ask why Vanaheim's king was suddenly behaving more like an enemy.

Gullveig stood, and Thor hoped he hadn't insulted him with his use of familiar address. "Vanaheim _is _allied with Asgard. With an Asgard that brought peace to the Nine Realms and kept it, ruled by a man who embraced peace with as much vigor as he once embraced war, who valued justice and who honored his truces."

Thor broke out into a sweat, feeling further backed into a corner with every word. And then it got worse.

"I have begun to doubt whether that Asgard still exists. I know what you have done."

He worked his jaw as the corner closed in on him.

"You went to Jotunheim acting like a child. You flaunted a truce in place for a millennium. But this…this is not the worst of it; they were smarting for battle as much as you were. But then you sought to wipe their realm from existence."

Silence would no longer do; Gullveig was waiting for a response. But Thor's thoughts were running in a circle and no words formed. He could not accuse his brother. But while he and Loki had often taken the heat for each other growing up, if he accepted blame for this himself his reign would be tainted before it began. His brain wasn't producing any other alternatives.

"It wasn't you, was it?" the king finally asked, his tone indicating he already knew the answer. "Did Odin order this barbarism?"

"No," Thor snapped, eyes flashing.

"Did Loki do this?" He took two steps down, standing now only a few inches higher than Thor and fixing an unrelenting, unblinking stare on him.

Thor grit his teeth so hard his jaw hurt. They had agreed – and he had _sworn_! – that Loki's name would not be pulled into this. They'd thought him dead, and since at that time no one outside the family other than Heimdall knew what really happened, they'd agreed that his memory would not be stained by attempted genocide.

But although no sound escaped Thor's mouth, his face spoke volumes, and he was well aware of it; his brother had always been better at concealing the truth. And try as he might to wish away what was staring him in the face, it was clear that Gullveig already knew anyway. When someone already knew the truth and you still wished to convince them of a lie…ironically enough Thor knew of none other than Loki himself who could reliably succeed.

"I thought you said we were allies," the king reminded him.

"This has nothing to do with Vanaheim," Thor said, relieved to be let off the hook – even if in the most illusory and fleeting way.

"He tried to decimate an entire realm. Would have, if you hadn't stopped him. This has to do with all of us, all of the Nine Realms and beyond. It _was_ him, wasn't it?"

He glared up at Gullveig. "Some things should remain within families."

The old king was unyielding. "Would that it had indeed remained within your family, but it did not. Now stop playing games and admit the truth like an adult. We cannot continue until you do."

After a few more moments of trying to convince himself there was a way out of this and failing, Thor gave in. He broke eye contact and nodded. And just like that he'd broken a promise to his brother. The corner closed in on him and he drew in shallow breaths. His eyes drifted shut.

Gullveig descended the last two steps to the floor. He placed a hand on Thor's left arm. "I'm sorry," he said.

Thor looked at the man again, and found himself looking back at a different face. Gone were the hard lines and angles of a foreign king, back was the man who'd carried him on his shoulders at his tenth birthday. Thor let out a ragged sigh.

"I know this isn't easy for you. I know you and he were close."

_Close_. The word was almost offensive, ringing out like an empty goblet clattering against a table. Thor had servants he was _close_ to. He had only one brother. "I've answered all of your questions," he finally recovered enough to say. "You still haven't answered mine."

"You haven't asked any."

At that the screeching of a raven sounded behind them and they looked up to see Hugin and Munin flying into the hall. Thor took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. The ravens did not leave Odin's side so long as he slept; his father had finally woken. The birds perched in the trees of the hall leading to the throne.

"Why did the dark elves come here?" Thor asked, as he'd wanted to all along. And if it sounded confrontational, so be it.

"You already know the answer, but I'll indulge you. They informed us of what Loki had done to Jotunheim. And they wanted to discuss justice."

"Justice?" Thor repeated guardedly.

Gullveig nodded, removed his hand from Thor's arm. "Loki must face justice."

His face darkened with rising anger. "He _is_ facing justice. The All-Father is punishing him."

"I hear otherwise. I understand he's free to do as he pleases on Midgard," Gullveig said, his face gone cold and hard again.

"He is restrained," Thor growled.

"Be reasonable, Thor!" Gullveig suddenly shouted. When he spoke again he had reigned himself in. "The other realms are uniting around this. Loki has committed a crime of unimaginable proportions against Jotunheim. He must be held accountable before the Jotuns."

_Stop-stop-stop-stop_ Thor willed, but the words continued.

"He must be delivered to Jotunheim."

/

* * *

/

Loki watched as Jane sat back in her chair, deflating as though she were a balloon. Her dread was so plainly etched on her face it was almost comical. He felt hidden laughter reaching for his eyes trying to peek though and reminded himself that Lucas would not find this funny at all. He mirrored a milder form of Jane's dread, and added in discomfort and guilt.

"Well?" she asked with resignation and a twinge of annoyance.

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his legs and putting his head at her level. "I told you that SHIELD asked me to come here and assist you in your work."

She nodded.

"And that I wasn't here to report on you to them."

Again she nodded, but this time she drew in a breath and set her jaw.

_A misdirect within a lie within a lie,_ he thought with a thrill of both excitement and pride. "I never said they didn't ask."

She paused, then sat forward, looking determined and more than a little angry. "Okay, cut the…whatever this is. Are you telling me SHIELD wanted you to come down here and spy on me but you said no?"

"Correct on both counts." There was a long moment of silence then, but Loki waited it out, watching her watch him.

"Why are you just telling me this now? It's not like the subject hasn't come up before."

"I didn't think it mattered before. After all, I turned them down. And then when I realized how nervous you were about them, I decided it was best not to worry you."

"Did they…did they try to pressure you?"

"I believe the word you're looking for is 'threaten,'" he said, leaning back in his chair. "They tried. I was already signing the papers when one of them added a condition. They wanted detailed reports on everything you worked on and everyone you talked to and everything you said about them or events in New Mexico and New York. When I refused they took the papers and threatened to rip them up."

She shook her head. "And still you said no? Why? You didn't know me. It just would've meant some extra paperwork for you."

"I'm not fond of paperwork," he said, smiling.

"Seriously, Lucas. This isn't the slightest bit funny. Not to me."

"All right. Seriously. I've dealt with bullies before and I don't like them. I don't respond well to threats. I don't like playing games. And I don't like paperwork." _Mostly true_, Loki thought, enjoying this particular game greatly. "Besides," he continued, "as I told you, I'm really not here for anyone other than myself."

"Soooo…what you're saying is you're too selfish to spy on me?"

He thought for a moment, for appearances' sake, then nodded. "That's one way of looking at it, I suppose. Regardless, when they realized I wouldn't budge, they relented and sponsored me anyway. They didn't really have time to try to recruit someone else. And I assumed that was the end of that."

"But it wasn't," she said, lifting her head slowly, looking as though she'd just put all the pieces together. "They've contacted you. That's why you're bringing this up now."

"No. They haven't contacted me at all. I believe they were sufficiently convinced by my refusal. But" – _oh, and here it is, Jane Foster, are you ready?_ – "just because I said no, doesn't mean others didn't say yes."

There was a precise moment when she understood what he was saying – it registered on her face as clearly as a verbal response, with a slightly opened jaw and a slight relaxation around the eyes. Then her mouth snapped closed again and he knew she'd leapt to exactly where he'd led her.

"Who?" she simply asked, though he knew she had more questions. This one was the most urgent.

"I can't know for certain…"

"Tell me who. Right now."

"A few days ago…well, Selby was asking me a lot of questions about you."

She sucked in a breath and stood up, pacing a small path through the lab, her eyes darting toward Selby's desk and away again.

"What kind of questions?" she finally asked.

Loki gave a small shrug. "What you intended to do with your work after leaving here. Whether you were working on anything you weren't telling SHIELD about. That kind of thing."

She looked at him sharply when he mentioned SHIELD. "Did he tell you a story about his friend getting drunk at his bachelor party and telling him all about that?"

Loki had no idea what she was talking about, but…why not? He nodded sadly. Compassionately. His mother would appreciate that.

"And did he tell you about- No. He wouldn't have."

He watched her and waited. She was over the initial shock now; she was thinking. Her expression had grown opaque. And yet he recognized it nonetheless. He had ripped away from her something she had trusted. A tiny and insignificant something: one friend. Perhaps more, if he'd been as successful as he'd hoped, but still so very, very little. The tiniest taste of what had been ripped from him. It felt good to be the one to do the ripping. Better than good. Exhilarating.

It took a while, but finally she nodded, perhaps to a question in her own mind. "I think I'm going to…I'll go back to the station for a while. I just…I guess I need some time to think about this. We can make up the hours tomorrow. Oh, or maybe not," she said with a grimace. "Tomorrow is housemouse day. We'll make it up during the week, and maybe on Sunday. Is that okay?"

"Of course," he said as gently as he knew how.

She was deeply distracted and barely looked at him. He listened to her footsteps recede and let himself genuinely relax, a self-satisfied smile spreading across his face.

The smile faded in the same manner it had appeared as elation was replaced with emptiness. For an instant, in the chair Jane had vacated he saw Thor, his bright, trusting eyes brimming with unshed tears as he'd told him with formal regret that his father was dead and his mother never wanted to see him again. _How gullible!_ Frigga, who still loved even the defeated Frost Giant son, the false second son who like a parasite had taken the life of her third son and ultimately tried to take the life of her first. Even if Thor hadn't known all those things at the time, he still could hardly believe how readily he'd accepted that she would reject her beloved firstborn. He'd spun his tale so utterly convincingly Thor had actually apologized to _him_.

If he could do that to Thor, his own brother – the man who'd grown up as his brother, he corrected himself – who _knew_ what a commensurate liar he was, it was a trifle to succeed against unsuspecting mortal Jane Foster. Hardly worth the rush of pride and power he'd been basking in. She was a poor substitute for a real challenge, but she was all he had here, the only one who had something he needed.

He would see to it that he was all she had, too.

The more he was able to focus her on what he needed, the closer he was to Svartalfheim. Through Svartalfheim he would gain his freedom. Once free, in the end, he would gain whatever he decided he wanted.

/

* * *

/

"Thank you for your time, Your Majesty," Thor said stiffly. "I must return to Asgard. I will convey your message to my father." He went to a knee, perhaps the most painful knee he'd ever taken.

Gullveig in turn bowed his head to Thor in a greater show of respect than he had displayed earlier.

Thor strode toward the door, trying to keep his gait steady and calm. He could not discuss this further. With his father awake, he no longer spoke for Asgard. His pace slowed. But he still spoke for himself. He stopped. And he would _never_ be able to hold his tongue the way Loki could. "I don't know what justice is best for Loki," he said, turning back toward the king, who'd begun to ascend the stairs to his throne again. "But I do know this. I will never see him handed over to the Frost Giants." He picked up a brisk pace and continued toward the door, relieved that Gullveig did not respond. He wasn't sure he could have maintained the tenuous control he had over himself.

He was further relieved to find Mjolnir exactly where he left it, to heft it in his hand and find its weight, its grip, the energy surrounding it unchanged…and he was disturbed that he'd imagined he might find anything else in the land of his allies.

_I would lift Mjolnir_, he'd promised Loki, moved by the rare glimpse of vulnerability and desperation he'd seen in his brother. Imprisonment, tortures, unending sleep, even death, Loki would have accepted. _Don't let them send me to Jotunheim_, he'd pleaded.

Hammer firmly in his grip, Thor made his way out of the palace and down the tree-lined avenue toward the portal. A pair of ravens shrieked as they flew past, and a dozen royal guards appeared alongside him as though they just happened to be headed in the same direction. Thor ignored them, one thought alone on his mind.

He had broken one promise to Loki today. He would not break another.

/

* * *

/

Jane trudged over the snow toward the station. Someone was driving some kind of forklift-like vehicle into a shed in the distance, at the opposite end of the station, but no one else was around and no other sounds were heard. Red flags slowly marked her progress as she passed to their right.

She felt numb, and not just from the cold. She'd done so many flip-flops with SHIELD already, as they'd swung on a giant pendulum from Good Guy land to Bad Guy land in her mind more times than she could count, and not that long ago she'd never even heard of them. But everything they'd ever done to earn them Good Guy points was looking more and more dubious now.

Yes, they'd returned all her equipment and electronic records. But Thor had basically insisted on that, and who could've seen what he'd done in the moments just before that and tell him "no"? Yes, they'd funded her research, but it was a cheap investment – they got sole rights to every single thing she did with their funds. Yes, they'd brought the Avengers together to unite against Thor's brother Loki and his extraterrestrial army, but Tony Stark wasn't one for obfuscating his opinions and she knew he didn't really trust the organization even though he was apparently a part of it. Other than a brief exchange with Bruce Banner when he'd been working with Tony on something or other, she'd never met the other Avengers – how many of them, like Tony, were only grudgingly a part of that network? Yes, Peter Larson in Tromso had seemed like a normal human being and had the decency to look like he felt genuine guilt when he picked her up and carried her away from the door at the base – especially after she'd kicked him hard in the shin – but he'd still sat out in a van somewhere taking pictures of her as she talked with Thor.

And now this. Yes, they send her to the South Pole to take advantage of the clearest, driest skies on the planet. But then they send down to join her people who were supposed to report on whether she's sticking to the plan. First Lucas. She hoped he was telling the truth, that he really had refused their demands. She shook her head slightly, deeply lost in thought. He _had_ to be telling the truth. Something flashed in his eyes when he mentioned SHIELD; she could tell he had no love for them. Maybe that's why he'd reacted so angrily when she'd accused him flat-out of working for them. _As if acting like a jerk toward him wasn't enough to provoke that._ But more importantly, if he _had_ agreed to report on her he wouldn't have told her his suspicions about Selby.

So then there was Selby. Selby, who said he'd met her at a retirement party, but she didn't remember meeting him. Selby, who oh-so-conveniently knew about SHIELD and the tesseract and Asgard. Selby, who kept wanting to talk about the things she'd told him she couldn't talk about. And now Selby, who'd started peppering Lucas with questions when she hadn't given in to the temptation to talk about it. The quickly-formed bond she'd felt with him before, built around Caltech and the knowledge of "things further away," now sickened her. Even if he had really gone to Caltech – and that was easily checked – their supposed friendship had been based on a lie.

He had been acting a little strange around her the last few days. Maybe that was when he started asking Lucas questions about her. And if Lucas had refused to do SHIELD's bidding at the risk of having his winter at the South Pole rescinded, she had no doubt he'd refused to answer Selby's questions, even though looking back she realized he hadn't explicitly said that.

Jane reached the DZ stairs and made her way directly to her room, not far at all. She forced a friendly greeting to the one person she met on the way, a man whose name she couldn't recall, and slipped quietly into the corridor of the berthing wing and into her own room. She closed her door behind her and for the first time since the day of her arrival wished there was a lock.

_What good would a lock do, though?_ she asked herself as she shrugged out of Big Red and collapsed into her desk chair. _I don't even have any secrets._ She glanced at her watch; the satellite window had passed.

_I _do_ have secrets_, she amended. _Just not from them_. And suddenly she wanted to tell SHIELD where to stick their secrecy agreements and to start spilling more secrets than any drunken guest at Selby's bachelor party could even dream of. She could tell Lucas, at least. He'd listen. She started to laugh, and it built and built into near hysterics. _"There's this place called Asgard…" "Let's build a wormhole and go there!"_ she imagined the conversation going. But she would have to start _that_ story with "This is going to sound crazy," and Lucas wouldn't approve.

When the laughter faded she felt her throat tightening up and swallowed hard. She would not cry over this, she refused. So she had one less friend here than she thought she'd have. So what? Lucas had the right idea. She wasn't here for SHIELD, she was here for herself.

* * *

/

_This was a fun chapter for me to write, it's fun to put Thor through a bit of a wringer. How far will he go to honor his promise to Loki? How far will he need to go?_

_Here are some teasers from "Chapter 19: Rebellion" (in one place I had some of the best fun writing this yet, and in one place it was rather tough! hope it all works out well and you enjoy it!) - Thor has a tense conversation with Odin; Jane gets suspicious of Lucas; Loki _**really**_ misses living as a prince; Loki feels he's getting closer to his goal. (Oh yes, and ninepen laughs out loud while writing. I'm so hoping you get some good laughs too. If not...at least _I_ did!)_

_And the excerpt (this is Thor and Odin talking):_

"Thor."

Just a name. But a clear command nonetheless. Thor ignored it. "I promised him I would not let him be sent to Jotunheim."

"You should not have made a promise which is beyond your power to keep."


	20. (19) Rebellion

_In this chapter, Loki, Jane, and Thor each have at least a moment of rebellion. But you may have guessed that already. Two of these stand a good chance of having serious consequences._

/

* * *

**Beneath**

Chapter Nineteen – Rebellion

"Father, they want-"

"I know," Odin said. He stood with Frigga by his side, waiting by the shimmering golden door near the end of the statue-lined colonnade that led to the palace.

Of course he knew. His first visit upon waking would have been to Heimdall, and Hugin and Munin would have filled him in on the rest.

"What will you do?" The words rushed out in anger, a challenge. He wasn't angry at Odin, he was just angry. And now he was finally free to express it…within limits.

"Nothing, yet. We need more information."

"But you will not-"

"Thor."

Just a name. But a clear command nonetheless. Thor ignored it. "I promised him I would not let him be sent to Jotunheim."

"You should not have made a promise which is beyond your power to keep."

"They don't know where Loki is," Frigga interjected before Thor could erupt. "Do they?"

Thor forcibly dragged his eyes from his father to his mother. "Gullveig knew he's on Midgard," he said after a moment's thought. "He seemed to know everything."

"Almost as if he were here," Odin said with a sharp nod.

His gaze drifted back to his father, but his eyes were unfocused as he thought back to what the Vanir king had said. "You're right. He knew what I did on Jotunheim. And he knew it was Loki who turned the bifrost against them. I…I didn't tell him. He already knew."

"How many here know the truth?"

Thor put names to a timeline, starting with the immediate aftermath of Loki's attempt to demolish Jotunheim, when it was only the three of them and Heimdall. By the time Thor had returned with his silenced, defeated brother in hand, news of Loki's intentions toward Midgard had spread, and as soon as he'd been imprisoned all of Odin's advisors had been given the full story – Jotunheim, Asgard, Midgard. When the dark elves went to Jotunheim, Thor relented and told the Warriors Three and Sif, whom he'd not wanted to think worse of Loki than they already did. Finally, Tyr had been brought in. The fact that Loki was himself Jotun remained only among the original four, as it would forever – unless Loki himself decided differently, they'd all agreed.

"Several of them have grudges against Loki for one thing or another, but I could not question the loyalty of any one of them," Thor said.

"One need not be disloyal to Asgard to believe that Loki should face justice on Jotunheim. Remember, Thor, nearly two-thirds of my advisors agreed on just that when you brought him back from Midgard."

"Yes, but you made your decision and it was final. I've heard no grumbling. And they have seen that Loki has posed no danger to Asgard. Nor has Heimdall seen any sign of danger from him on Midgard."

"I am glad to hear that. Loki is clever, and I'm certain he's put much thought into ways of bypassing the enchantments I placed on him. But while he may not directly be a danger himself right now, he may become an indirect source of danger to our realm yet."

"Vanaheim would never support any aggressive act against Asgard," Frigga interjected confidently.

"Perhaps. But we cannot ignore this risk. Thor, you did well to go to Vanaheim and to keep your calm. Tomorrow I will go to Svartalfheim. We need yet more answers. I fear there will be difficult decisions ahead."

"If there are decisions, they will not be difficult," Thor said darkly. When he'd thought he'd lost his father forever he would've given anything to take back his arrogant defiance toward him, and when he'd learned he hadn't lost him after all, he'd sworn he'd never defy him again. But he would toss that rash unspoken oath straight over the shattered Rainbow Bridge to stand by the far more deliberate one he'd made to Loki.

Odin sighed. "The universe is not so simple as you prefer to see it, Son. Now, to the council chambers."

Thor exchanged glances with his troubled mother and somber father, and the three of them set off from the portal to Vanaheim. He couldn't disagree with his father. But while he knew the universe was inordinately complex, he also knew there was nothing simpler than a promise to a brother.

/

* * *

/

Jane slept fitfully that night. It wasn't the altitude; she had no trouble breathing when she laid down. It wasn't even the sunlight that leaked through the heavy shade over her window all night long. It was her mind that simply refused to shut down and surrender to sleep, that rebelled when sleep was victorious and created senseless dreams full of anxiety that she struggled to pull herself out of.

She replayed in her mind every snippet of conversation with Selby she could recall. She remembered that he'd gotten here about two weeks ahead of her and Lucas, well after the other scientists. And right before that he'd gotten married, and right before _that_ his "friend" would have told him all about the tesseract. The timeline was tight…maybe too tight to have happened that way. His bachelor party would have had to have taken place right after the attack on Manhattan.

At a little after 4 AM she slid from the bed down to her new footstool and over to her desk where she powered up her laptop. The satellite link would be up by now. Selby's name turned up on Caltech's website in all the logical places and he certainly spoke about it like he knew it, so either SHIELD had done a very elaborate job setting him up as a Caltech PhD or they'd gone looking for a Caltech grad in the first place.

She found his and Holly's wedding announcement, then searched on Holly. Holly's Facebook page was unrestricted, and there she found wedding photos with dates that indicated they did get married in the short window of time between the Chitauri attack and when Selby must have left for the South Pole. But that didn't mean Selby was telling the truth about the friend at the bachelor party. It didn't even mean this Facebook page was genuine. Jane had seen the news reports following the attack in New Mexico that used fake footage to counter the real images caught on cameras and cell phones.

Jane sat back in her chair and let her eyes drift upward. She swallowed with difficulty over a dry throat. _What a nightmare_, she thought. _I can't trust _anything_ anymore_. She got up and pulled up the shade over the window. _I can still trust the data_. She looked out in the direction of the dark sector. She couldn't see it from the limited view out her window, but her eyes were unfocused anyway.

Lucas had known all along that SHIELD wanted someone here to spy on her. But _he_ didn't seem bothered by it, even though given his refusal and the fact that he was working with her he must have become a target of their interest as well. His attitude was…different. _I'm here for myself_, he'd told her twice now. She thought about how he'd kept his interactions with everyone else here to a minimum, how in a group he grew silent but alone with her he would sometimes actually talk to her about something other than work, more so as the days had passed. He must have been keeping silent around the others deliberately from the start; it would explain why he seemed so uptight most of the time. He must have suspected that someone else would have been tasked with the assignment he refused.

_Someone_…_or someones_? Lucas had said "others," plural. Maybe _others_ had said yes. Her thoughts jumped to Rodrigo. Also a last-minute winterover. He was replacing someone who he'd said had a family emergency of some sort, as best she recalled. She clenched her jaw. She _liked_ Rodrigo. Easy-going but direct. She always felt relaxed and comfortable with him. What about Gillian Waters? Jane had only seen her once or twice since the briefings on her first and second day there – a "room-eater," Rodrigo had called her, meaning she kept to herself so much she took her meals to her room. Why did _she_ get there so late, and what was she doing all that time she was out of sight? What about Su-Ji Lee? She made her own hours and they didn't line up with anyone else's – why? What about Cyrus Wright? She'd spent almost as much time with him as with Selby, and he would have as much opportunity as Selby to be around her and observe what she was doing.

Jane's head dropped down almost to her chest and she rubbed the back of her neck. She had to stop. She knew it. She knew she would drive herself right out of her mind if she kept this up.

Maybe Lucas was the _only_ one here she could trust, she thought with an ironic laugh muffled by her pajamas. Those days when she'd been 100% certain _he_ was a SHIELD plant seemed so far away, distant not only in space but time, though it hadn't been that long ago at all. Her gaze slid over to her laptop; she followed her eyes. _Lucas Cane_, she typed into the search engine. She'd meant to do this much earlier and never remembered. She found plenty of Lucas Canes, but none that seemed to be her assistant. When she added Toronto to the search terms the results didn't improve. She stared at the uncooperative computer and tried to come up with more search terms. "University of Toronto" didn't help. "Melfort" didn't help. "Physics" and "astrophysics" didn't help. And she realized she didn't know much else about him. He'd mentioned a family business, but not what kind of business. She went directly to the University of Toronto's Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics. There was a "People" link; she clicked on it. Then "Graduate Students." She scrolled down.

She stared at the screen, her mouth hanging slightly open. There was no Lucas Cane. Feeling a weight pressing down on her, growing heavier by the second, she clicked the back button, and selected "Post-docs & Research Associates," although she was certain she remembered him telling her he was a graduate student. No Lucas Cane. For good measure she clicked through "Faculty" and "Staff." No Lucas Cane.

Another couple of minutes passed while she stared at the screen and did nothing. Anger quickly overwhelmed everything else she was feeling, and with anger came an idea. She trolled through the university's website a while longer, then slammed the laptop closed harder than she really should have. She threw on some clothes, brushed her hair, then hurried to the bathroom to finish getting ready. It was about 6:30 when she knocked on Lucas's door. No answer. She tried again, then frowned and headed over to the galley.

Her stomach was in knots, but she'd skipped dinner and knew she should try to eat something anyway. She got a bowl of cereal with milk made from the powdered stuff, a couple of pieces of toast, and a double espresso. Now that she'd acclimated she wasn't going to worry about the caffeine warnings anymore. Especially not today.

At the espresso machine she saw Austin and made a little small talk, including mentioning that she needed to talk with Lucas that morning. A little privacy, it turned out, was easier to find in the galley anyway now that only the precisely 50 winterovers were left in the entire station. She sat down at a round four-seater table on the far side of the dining area and waited.

/

* * *

/

"Hey, how'd you sleep?" Jane asked, in what apparently substituted for _Good morning, how are you?_ at the South Pole.

"Well," Loki lied, dropping into the seat across from Jane. _Not joining your friends this morning, hm? _"And you?" He was rapidly tiring of the local version of this ritualized question. His answer was almost always a lie, for one reason or another, and an uninteresting lie at that.

"Okay. I woke up a few times. Maybe a little bit of periodic breathing going on again," she said before taking her last bit of toast.

Loki regarded her intently behind an expression of minimal interest as he breathed out his usual noncommittal "mmm." He slid one hand under the table and stretched his fingers, checking the integrity of the bubble he'd built around her. As he suspected, it held, the air pressure slightly less that when he'd first created it, exactly as it should be. _Lying to me now, are you, Jane?_

"No other symptoms?"

"I don't think so," she said, shaking her head.

Loki nodded and went back to his breakfast of sausage and hash browns. The sausage in particular was vile – he had lived his whole life eating fresh foods, and the tendency on Midgard was to freeze everything before thawing it and serving it, much of it not starting out as something fresh to begin with. Here he supposed it couldn't be helped; no beasts roamed the land and nothing grew in the frigid temperatures and layers of snow and ice outside. Knowing it was unavoidable didn't mean he had to like it.

"So I was thinking last night…" Jane began. "Actually, I was just trying to think about anything other than what we talked about yesterday afternoon." She gave a nervous laugh.

He looked up at her with a raised eyebrow, then again turned his attention to his food. _A very good match for Thor. Just as bad a liar as he is. The lie hasn't even come yet and you've given it away._ He suspected he even knew what kind of lie would follow.

"I met one of UT's professors at a conference a couple of years ago. Really friendly. One of the few people willing to listen to my theories. Benjamin Keller? Have you had classes with him yet?"

Loki swallowed and wiped his mouth with a napkin. "No, actually I've never heard of him. Are you sure you have the right university?" He glanced up at her only for a moment, long enough to see he had her full attention.

"You didn't have him for Extragalactic Astronomy?"

"No. I had Dr. Westin. I think he always teaches that course." He looked up at Jane, regarded her curiously for just the right amount of time. "Oh, I see. That was a test. You're making sure I am who I say I am. That I'm not here to report on you after all. Back to that, are we?" He took a quick sip of previously-frozen orange juice. "I knew I shouldn't have told you the truth. Well, did I pass?"

Jane shot him a look of annoyance. "Yes."

"So did you just make up this Benjamin Keller or does he exist somewhere?"

"He teaches at Duke."

Loki pursed his lips, thought for a moment. "I still haven't heard of him. Was that a test, too? I hope I haven't failed that one."

"No, he really teaches at Duke. But he's more of a geophysicist than an astrophysicist. An old friend of my dad's. No particular reason you would have heard of him."

"Mmm. Well, congratulations on the research. You knew about Extragalactic Astronomy."

"I looked at your department's website. And you know what? You aren't on it."

Loki sighed, then sat up straighter, showing just a hint of anger in the tightness of his jaw. It was difficult. He was having the most fun he'd had since coming here – Jane trying to lie to him was even better than him lying to her. "How many times must I prove myself to you, Jane? I'm not surprised I'm not on the website anymore. I did mention to you that I'd taken the semester off, didn't I? And since I agreed to come here – and I do wish you'd stop trying to make me regret that – I'm going to be gone an entire year. I'm sure some of them are hoping I make their lives easier by not returning. But I don't give up that easily." He paused to take a breath. And for dramatic effect. "Do you?"

He waited as she blinked rapidly, confusion quickly followed by a burst of anger. "Nobody's giving up here, Lucas. As…as…_frustrating_ as this is, it's not going to stop me from doing what I came here to do. Not being able to trust anybody here doesn't change that." She broke into a sad little laugh. "I couldn't quit even if I wanted to." She angled her head to her right, as though pointing out the window.

Loki glanced outside toward the red- and white-striped ceremonial pole marker and the unbroken frozen plain beyond that met the horizon in the distance, a pure white symbol of their isolation. "I suppose not. But you _can_ trust _me_, Jane. I know you may not believe that now…and it's my own fault for telling you what I told you. That was a mistake."

"No," she immediately responded, shaking her head fervently. "No, you did the right thing. I'd rather walk around here with my eyes wide open than being blind to whatever…whatever _they're_ up to. So, now I know. And…and I can deal with it. It's so ridiculous anyway. It's not like I keep things from them. I mean, I don't tell them every little thought that goes through my head, and some things are private, so I don't report every single conversation I ever have. But my work…they get everything. And you said" – she paused to glance around her and over her shoulder – "he was asking if I was working on anything secret? That I wasn't telling SHIELD about? Anything they wanted to know about, all they'd have to do is ask."

"Obviously they think you might choose to work on something without telling them."

She put her head in her hands. "But that's just…just…" she stammered. "Just uhhh!" she exclaimed. Or something like that. She glanced around again, having obviously been louder than she'd intended.

Loki clenched his jaw tightly to keep his expression in check, on the edge of losing control and laughing. _So clever at times. So like Thor at others,_ he thought with a certain reflexive fondness_. _"It is what it is," Loki said once he was sure he could keep his voice steady. An inane little phrase he'd heard during his last visit to Midgard. Inane but oddly useful here, where people seemed to take it as the epitome of wisdom and sagacity.

Jane, too, apparently, for she nodded thoughtfully and told him he was right. "It doesn't have to affect anything, right? I mean…I can't _do_ anything about it. I could complain to SHIELD – and I have a lot of their e-mail addresses, even at the top. But it wouldn't do any good. Maybe it's just Selby, and who knows what his role really is, but maybe it's others, too. I just…I don't know, maybe…"

"Jane."

"What?"

"Did you come here to make friends?"

She sighed deeply and looked away for a moment. "No."

"Then don't worry about it. Let them do what they must, and you do what you must."

She nodded, but she wasn't happy about it. Lucas's stoic expression was now easy to wear; watching Jane grow gloomy wasn't nearly as much fun as sparring with her.

"Well. Right now we all have to do the same thing. We have to meet Selby and Wright for house mouse day." She glanced up at the overhead screen.

"House mouse day?"

"Yeah. What, did you forget?"

"No, I just thought…" _What would Lucas say?_ For the first time Loki couldn't find his way beyond his own reaction.

"You thought what?" she asked, a hint of a smile in her lips.

"We have work to do."

"So does everyone else. I know what you were going to say. You thought it didn't apply to you. Is that it?"

Loki narrowed his eyes and exhaled slowly.

"Well, it does. It applies to everyone. And they posted the new schedule on Sunday. This week because of station closing it's Tuesday and Thursday. Starting next week, Monday and Thursday. And if you're done, we may as well get going and get a jump on things. The sooner we're done the sooner we can get to work."

All fun had now ceased. And the fact that she found this even the slightest bit funny made him sorely regret Curse Number One.

/

* * *

/

Lucas stood awkwardly with the mop in his right hand when Jane looked up from the sink she was scrubbing.

Her estimation of the size of his trust fund was growing by the second. No wonder he didn't care if he antagonized all his professors and shady but powerful government organizations to boot. She thought she might believe him if he said he'd never even _seen_ a mop in his life.

He was so tense she imagined she could flick a finger against his middle and he would snap in two.

"I told you, you should start on the showers or the toilets anyway. The floors should be last." Jane went back to work on the sink. This was funny, in a weird kind of way, but her ability to find humor in it was going to start fading fast if he didn't start doing _something_ useful and she got stuck with all the work. It wasn't like _her_ greatest joy in life was cleaning bathrooms, either. But 50 people didn't mean "plus a dozen for cleaning up behind everyone else." She was about to tell him to get over himself when suddenly he put the mop back in the bucket and leaned it against the wall.

"You're right." He came to her side, where she had all the cleaning supplies set out. "I'll clean the toilets."

She shot him a skeptical look, then handed him the brush, a scrubber, two of the cleaners, and a pair of gloves. He took them with obvious distaste and went into one of the toilet stalls, shutting the door behind him. "Do you, uh, want me to show you how to do it?" she called.

"I think I can figure it out, thank you," he said.

Jane just shook her head and moved on to the next sink. She'd never met anyone quite that spoiled before. Then she paused, thought about what she knew of Tony Stark. Wondered if he'd know what to do if someone stuck a mop in his hands. It made her snicker a bit and she went back to work. She paused again as her mouth fell open and she almost slapped her palm against her forehead before remembering the yellow rubber gloves she had on. Because then there was Thor. But he'd changed his attitude awfully fast. Her face relaxed into a smile as she pictured him in the little kitchen area back in Puente Antiguo with a dish towel thrown so casually and yet so perfectly over his shoulder. He'd looked almost as good like that as he had when he hadn't had his shirt-

A toilet flushed. Jane jumped to attention, then frowned and shook off the memory.

After she finished she walked over to help with the toilets, but she had lost track of what he was doing and found him emerging from the last stall as the water flushed. She looked inside; everything sparkled like new. "Wow. I'm impressed," she said, the first words to come to mind tumbling out as her eyebrows shot up. She turned back toward him and was taken aback by his expression, but before she could really process it, it was gone. Whatever it had been, it wasn't pleasant. And it wasn't friendly. She ducked her head and went back to rummage through the cleaning supplies again, giving him as wide a berth as she could in the small bathroom.

"Showers next?"

"Fine," he said.

She filled his hands, then hers, and she took the shower on the right while he took the one on the left. He pulled the curtain behind him; she didn't see the point and left hers open. He emerged shortly after her, and this time she didn't try to check up on him. Apparently he didn't appreciate that. "I'll do the mopping," she said as a peace offering, even if she didn't see any reason for him to be quite that offended, or whatever he was.

"All right," he said, but then surprised her by continuing. "I'll do it next time."

She narrowed her eyes at him for a second, then grinned. "Don't think I don't know how hard it was for you to say that." She took the mop where he'd left it and started at the far end of the bathroom, by the toilets and showers.

He just stood there watching her, which felt kind of strange, so she broke the silence. "So…I'm guessing you grew up-"

"With servants to do this kind of thing for me?" he interrupted.

"I was going to say 'rich,' but okay," Jane said without missing a beat.

"In either case, the answer is yes."

"And you said you were estranged from your family?"

He backed up toward the sinks as she mopped in his direction. "I don't want to talk about my family."

"You've asked me about mine."

"So tell me about them."

She took a deep breath, letting the mop fall still for a moment. She knew exactly where this was going. "I don't want to talk about my family."

"Well, then."

Jane ignored him and kept mopping. But then she couldn't stop herself. She let the mop handle fall against a sink. Lucas was standing by the door now. "All right, fine. My-"

He quickly put out a hand and interrupted. "It's all right. I didn't mean to push. I already know, anyway."

"Will you stop doing that?!" she yelled, startling herself with the outburst.

He took another step back, his eyes widening. "Doing what?"

"Do you work for SHIELD or not? Tell me the truth right now."

"I- I promise you, Dr. Foster, from the depths of my soul, I do not work for SHIELD. I would sooner destroy them."

"Then what did you mean when you said you 'already know' about my family? I've never-"

"You've only ever spoken of your parents in the past tense. I'm observant, Dr. Foster. No one showed me some file with all your secrets, such as they are. Now, please understand, that is the _last_ time I'm going to answer that question politely."

"I'm sorry," she said, barely catching his last few words. Suddenly whatever rational thoughts she'd had, whatever intellectual process she'd tried to put this whole thing through all began to fall apart. Friends who weren't friends. Friends who might be friends but might not be. Strangers who might know more about her than she about them. Employers who treated you like a prisoner and gave you the equivalent of an ankle bracelet and told you it was freedom. "This just isn't how I thought…how I expected…" She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to stave off the tears she felt coming. She felt a hand on her arm, pressing lightly. Lucas had closed the distance and stood there a little awkwardly, frowning down at her with something that looked almost like concern. It didn't sit well on him, and she turned her head away and gave a little laugh, embarrassed.

"Why don't you take a few minutes? I'll finish this."

Jane took a deep breath, let it out, hoped the moisture in the corners of her eyes would stay where it was and not decide to actually stake out a path down her cheeks. "Okay, yeah. Thanks. I'm sorry for getting all…I'll be fine. Just, uh…yeah." She opened the door, then turned back, deciding to make an effort at reclaiming some dignity. "But you're still mopping next time."

/

* * *

/

"Ready?"

Jane nodded and stepped out into the hall, closing the door behind her. Big Red was slung over her arm, and Loki had relented and put on his actual gear as well. It was simpler that way.

They left the station in silence; Loki wanted to let her speak first and she was clearly in more of a thinking mood than a speaking one.

Loki gave himself over to his own thoughts while he waited for Jane to share hers. Only half seriously, he wondered if the Chitauri's master's "encouragement" might not have been just as effective had he been threatened with cleaning toilets for the rest of his very, very long life. Perhaps not…but it wasn't entirely out of the realm of possibility. Even cleaning the bathroom with magic was a humiliation he would not be able to endure indefinitely. "House mouse" duties rotated, and he didn't know what he'd be expected to do next, but he couldn't think of anything more debasing. He would just have to make sure that by the next time that particular duty arose again, his circumstances would have changed dramatically. As in he would no longer be here. In the meantime, there was no reason he couldn't use everything that had happened in that bathroom to his advantage; it was why he hadn't gone to the considerable effort it would have required to mask how repugnant he found the situation. And Jane getting emotional and him comforting her – he couldn't have asked for anything better to have come from that whole degrading experience. He might have even taken a certain pleasure in it if it hadn't happened in the bathroom.

He was closer with every day that passed. He slept little, put the internet to work, and last night he'd finished the textbook he bought in Christchurch. The mortals used murky terms for concepts about which they merely made guesses, though, and he was finding it particularly difficult to match up facts perceived one way on Asgard with theoretical notions about facts perceived another way on Midgard. Dark energy and dark matter, initially so intriguing, remained of interest, but he understood now that the scientists here had no actual idea what these things were, despite the amount of ink they used up writing about them. They existed because they _needed_ to exist, to make the scientists' mathematical equations work – a rather backwards way of looking at things, Loki thought. Einstein, however, had shown him that even if those concepts were still merely theoretical, they may in fact actually exist, in which case they _did_ have analogs in Asgardian understanding.

Jane, in her own way, was also closer with every day that passed.

"We need a game plan," she was saying.

Perhaps with every minute. Loki waited while she fell silent again, anxious to hear this game plan. She stopped, so Loki did as well; they were about two-thirds of the way to the DSL.

"Selby and Wright might be out there. They probably finished with the other bathroom before we finished ours. So let's talk here. The thing is, you're right. I came here to work. And that's really it. So…I say we just work. Forget about the rest."

"Your game plan is…to ignore it?"

"Yes. I don't see any other reasonable option. Confronting Selby, confronting SHIELD, what's the point?"

Loki looked to his left and right; several people were clearing snow around one of the staircases at the station. "Let's go someplace where we can talk in private."

"In _private_? No one's around to hear us. Do you know how many people there are on this entire _continent_? It doesn't get much more private."

"Are there more than two?"

She made some unidentifiable sound in the back of her throat and turned back toward the station leaving him to follow. "Fine."

She led him into one of the abandoned rustic-looking arched-roof Summer Camp jamesways on the side closest to the dark sector. There was a small open vestibule area just inside the door, and beyond that a narrow corridor lined by heavy green curtains. The building wasn't heated, but with the door closed behind them there was no breeze and it felt a little warmer. Loki pulled off his hat, goggles, balaclava, and gloves while Jane did the same except for the gloves, which she left on.

"All right, privacy. What is it, then? You don't like my game plan?"

"Why are you here, Jane?" he asked. He'd been planning to ask, and as the words came out, he realized he _wanted_ to ask. He wanted to hear her answer.

"I told you why I'm here." She dropped her gear on a small table. "I'm here to work."

"And who decided what you're going to work on?"

"I did."

"Not SHIELD?"

"No, not SHIELD," Jane answered, her voice growing louder, clearly annoyed.

"SHIELD didn't have to approve it?"

"Of course SHIELD had to approve it! They're paying for it. That gives them the right to approve it."

_So reasonable. So rational. Where is your passion, Jane?_ "You still think they have the right to do _anything_? Why are you here?"

"I already-" Jane shook her head and laughed. She pulled out a chair from the table and sank into it. "Lucas, I'm not going to survive the winter with you here, am I?"

Loki couldn't help a little ironic laughter over that himself. Let Jane make of it what she liked. "You haven't given me a good answer. 'To work' isn't sufficient. What are your _goals_? What do you _want_ out of this?"

"The same thing as anyone else. To learn, to better understand the universe, to publish the findings. What do _you _want out of this?"

"I want to prove all my theories and quell all my detractors. I want everyone to know my name and stand in awe of what I've accomplished. And I refuse to back down before anyone who would stand in my way. I've listened to the way you speak about your work, Jane. I know you feel the same. I know your ambition is not so little. And I know you don't relish wearing SHIELD's leash and staying in the shadows. So why accept that? Why let them have so much power over you?" He paused; his chest had tightened and his hands were clenched into fists. Something inside him felt raw, and his control was faltering. _Focus_, he hissed at himself.

She overcame whatever reaction she'd had – he'd barely noticed it – and popped out of her chair to argue, but he cut her off. "Yesterday you told me I was selfish. I'm not selfish. I'm focused. But I'm focused on what _I _want. And…again, I'm sorry. I know I keep pushing. I really don't mean to. I know I'm here to focus on what _you_ want, and I'll do that. I'll play along with whatever game plan you decide on. Only…don't waste your opportunities, Jane."

She stared up at him, lips slightly parted but making no effort to respond. She liked to talk, and he'd made her speechless. In the right way, he hoped, more than hoped, he believed. "I'll be in the DSL," he said, pulling on his hat. He opened the door and stepped out into the snow.

Closer every minute.

/

* * *

/

Jane paced the length of the corridor through the jamesway. Lucas's words had washed over her in a torrent rather than registering individually; she could hardly recall any of the actual phrases he'd used. He'd pushed some buttons, though. He seemed to have a knack for that, and for all his apologies she still wasn't convinced he wasn't doing it on purpose. She was angry at him and his apparently well-developed ego, but at the same time…he was right. Again.

She'd gotten along just fine on her own for several years, made advances in scientific understanding that she couldn't get anyone else to listen to but that had been proven correct. She resented that. She'd never before admitted it, even to herself.

And now she couldn't even talk about any of it without first weighing whether she'd be violating one of SHIELD's rules.

The data she collected here would be free and clear of any restrictions; she could analyze and publish to her heart's content. But she _did_ want more. Knowing what she knew, having seen what she'd seen…the data wasn't just data. It could be acted upon. Put to practical use. Maybe…

She hadn't needed SHIELD before, and she didn't need them now. Only their funding, and she already had that. She didn't really need their approval…not if she wanted to do _more_ than what her proposal had laid out. There was no harm in exceeding expectations.

Jane started getting the rest of her gear back in place. She wasn't certain she could pull it off. Not by a long shot. But if she focused on what she wanted to accomplish and nothing else…it was possible. She would prove she could do it without Nick Fury and his minions. In spite of them and their spies.

And what Selby, and SHIELD, and anyone else they'd talked into keeping an eye on her didn't know wouldn't hurt them.

* * *

/

_OK, so Jane trying to lie to Loki - there've been some things in this story I've had as much fun writing, but I don't think anything I've had _more _fun writing. I do hope you enjoyed it. Jane is being pretty clever, it's just she's _way _out of her league trying to put something past Loki who's had about 1,000 years more experience with it than her, and it's not really even her nature; I think of her as a pretty straightforward "what you see is what you get" kind of person, for the most part, not a game-player._

_House mouse duties, BTW, totally real. There's no janitorial staff cleaning up behind you there. Little does Loki know, he's also going to have to do dishpit duty. (I mention it because I probably won't write the scene, it'd be a very similar scene to the above and thus not really add anything.) I suspect he'll claim sensitive skin and try to weasel out of it. Jane will hand him some Palmolive and some gloves and tell him to suck it up._

_OK, teasers for Chapter 20 (which I may title "Mythology," haven't decided yet: Jane shares a little mythology with Lucas (see below), who's remarkably nonplussed about the whole thing; a little too much mythology is shared with Jane; Odin & Frigga discuss their sons; Loki gets hungry after hours and isn't happy with the leftovers the galley's provided. Amidst all this, yes, is page 38._

_[Interlude for a second shout-out to the 2012 South Pole winterovers. Winter season ended on October 27, when the first flight arrived since station closing in February. The first fresh faces, the first fresh foods ("freshies"). Although I'm sure they were all super excited it's kind of sad for me. Corresponding with them has been a real privilege, and I'm so very grateful. I think at most one of them is reading this story, but I'll say it anyway - fondest wishes to you all as you scatter and seek some warmth and greenery and liquid water. The Loki-gets-hungry scene in the next chapter is in honor of the Polies and is based on some real South Pole shenanigans.]  
_

_And the excerpt:_

"I- Look, it's not just about SHIELD, you know? Not everything's about them. But...I'll tell you, if you'll promise not to tell anyone else. It's not necessary for the research."

"I promise," Loki answered with utmost sincerity. No matter how many millennia he lived, he would never understand why those two little words – words just as capable of deceiving as any others – convinced so many people to trust. But he didn't have to understand it to use it.

"Good. This is…well, you know. Going to sound crazy. For real this time. Do you know anything about Norse mythology?"

_Thank you as always for the reviews, I really value them. BTW...perhaps as an incentive to get you to share your reactions, I should mention I have been known to respond with additional upcoming scene excerpts (if you have a particular question or interest that can be best addressed that way) and occasionally give away a few upcoming plot points after confirming you're ok with spoilers. And I'm always happy to answer questions._


	21. (20) Mythology

_Thank you for the reviews as always, they are such an encouragement. In this chapter, to start with, Jane begins filling Loki/Lucas in on more of the things he'll need to know to help with the new project, and they begin working hard at it. And for those of you who've been wondering, page 38 is explained, at Darcy's insistence.  
_

/**  
**

* * *

**Beneath**

Chapter Twenty – Mythology

"Are we alone?" Jane asked when she reached the DSL.

"In this building, we are," Loki answered, turning in his chair. He'd kept himself busy going through results from the data analysis software, but really he'd just been waiting.

She nodded and went to her desk, then opened a drawer and pulled out four rectangular metal boxes. Loki had seen them before, when they unpacked all the things she'd had shipped here, but she'd set them aside without comment or particular interest, and he hadn't thought about them since.

"If I'm going to do this-"

"Do what?" Loki asked with the innocence of a child.

"I thought you said you don't like playing games? You know exactly what. 'Challenging my assumptions'? I accept the challenge. These four hard drives contain all the data I have on the bridges that opened on Earth." She looked through them, searching for something he couldn't see from where he was sitting. "One. The first bridge. Not much data, doesn't take up much room. Until a couple of weeks ago it was all I had. So this one also holds the second bridge. Two. The third bridge. Three. The fourth bridge. And four…well, that's different." She averted her eyes and set that one down on top of her desk.

Loki knew exactly what must be on it, and she was right. That one was different. The thought of looking at that data sent a shiver down his spine. Those numbers added up to exhilaration and pain the first time and failure and fear the second time. And regardless, there was no way to replicate the tesseract here, so if she didn't want to share that data it was fine with him. He wouldn't waste his time convincing her to change her mind.

But the three others…a pirate's treasure and then some. Midgard's numbers, but applied to actual, not theoretical, events. Events Loki knew about, even one he instigated.

"I didn't realize there were so many," he said. "And…_people_ came to Earth through each of them?"

She took a deep breath and scrutinized him; she was so transparent Loki could see the struggle inside her – how much should she tell him? How much should she trust him?

"People arrived in two of them, the first two. Then a…a thing came through. It looked kind of like a giant robot but…well, you saw the pictures. And in the fourth, people went back."

"To where? Another planet?"

Again she hesitated. "I'm really not supposed to talk about this."

"Do you _really_ still care what SHIELD says you aren't supposed to do?"

"I- Look, it's not just about SHIELD, you know? Not everything's about them. But...I'll tell you, if you'll promise not to tell anyone else. It's not necessary for the research."

"I promise," Loki answered with utmost sincerity. No matter how many millennia he lived, he would never understand why those two little words – words just as capable of deceiving as any others – convinced so many people to trust. But he didn't have to understand it to use it.

"Good. This is…well, you know. Going to sound crazy. For real this time. Do you know anything about Norse mythology?"

Loki smiled condescendingly – why not? Lucas would smile condescendingly, too, after all. "I can't say that I do. The subject didn't come up much when I was studying _astrophysics_."

"Okay, but you've heard of some of it, right? I mean, Thor? You've heard of him, at least? Or Odin?"

"Those names sound vaguely familiar," he said, the smile gone. It didn't matter, he told himself. But it was a lie he couldn't quite make himself believe; although he'd gotten better at it, he was still nowhere near as talented a liar with himself as he was with everyone else. He'd spent almost his entire life at Thor's side, and yet the mortals-

"I didn't know anything about all that either. I grew up with Native American mythology, because of my mom's work. And I knew a little bit about Greek and Roman- Anyway, the thing is…it turns out…it's kind of true."

Loki nodded thoughtfully. This was too surreal. He decided he was best off remaining silent at this point.

Jane was watching him, looking a little worried. She continued after a moment. "The people that came through, and the robot thing, they came from a place called Asgard. Like in the mythology. And that's where they went back to."

"Asgard," Loki said, trying out the feel of the word in his mouth as though it were unfamiliar. And in many ways, it was. Home and not-home. Familiar and alien. "So, another planet, then?"

"I don't really know. I mean…I kind of think it's not exactly a planet, or what we think of as a planet, anyway." Her gaze had grown unfocused and downward cast. It seemed she knew only enough about Asgard to know it was not quite the same as Midgard. Perhaps Thor had never had the chance to explain it to her. His chest pulsed in a laugh he tried to stifle. Thor probably hadn't been _able_ to explain it. He'd relished the field trips but doodled his way through their formal lessons on cosmology.

"I don't even know where it's located," she went on, setting aside the mystery she simply lacked enough information on to solve. "I only know that people – real, actual people, not exactly the same as us but not that different either – these people came and went safely from that place, from Asgard, and that _proves_ that stable, traversable wormholes exist _and_ can be directed. And these," she said, holding up the three remaining silver boxes, "might contain information that points us to Asgard's location, among other things."

Loki knew where it was located. In the upper branches of Yggdrasil. He knew where Svartalfheim was, too, in relation to Asgard. Unfortunately _Understanding the Physics of the Universe_ did not mention Yggdrasil or anything remotely like it. He had no way to connect it to Midgardian science. But perhaps her hard drives could provide that connection. "Do you want to travel to this Asgard, Jane?"

Her eyes went wide. "I…no. I mean, that's not my goal. But if we're going to figure out how to generate a traversable wormhole, then it should lead to a place where someone could conceivably traverse it."

"Mmm," he breathed. This planet's own moon was much closer, and its location was perfectly well known. It was a much more logical goal. Yet it didn't seem to occur to her. She must want to see Asgard badly. _Missing your beloved_? he silently asked her. He wondered then what Thor was doing at that moment. If he was missing Jane, or if he really thought much about her at all. He knew Thor was fiercely protective of her, but he also knew he hadn't yet had to make any sudden disappearances upon an impromptu visit from Asgard. Odin should have woken up by now, and there was no bothersome former brother locked up in the prison, so Thor should be free to visit her if he chose. Perhaps he saw where she was and decided he preferred Asgard. Loki certainly did. He wondered then if Thor missed _him_. Missed the never-ending entreaties to come home, to be his brother, to remember the good times, to think of their mother, to abandon his plans…as if nothing had ever happened. As if nothing had changed. _Everything_ had changed. Even if he wanted to acquiesce – and in one flickering moment of weakness some small part of him had – it was impossible.

"Well?"

"What?" Loki snapped, forgetting for a moment who he was, who he was supposed to be. "I apologize. I was…just thinking."

"And?" She moved closer, now just a step away, her left hand on his desk, her right still clutching her hard drives.

He thought back, tried to recall what he'd apparently missed, but he apparently hadn't at all heard whatever it was she'd said.

"I asked if you were with me."

"For this project? Of course."

"It's going to take a lot of work. A lot of long hours. There are a lot of unknowns. A lot of obstacles. And _unknown_ unknowns, you know? If this were easy someone would have figured it out already."

"If it were easy it wouldn't be worth the effort."

"There might be…some risk."

"What do you mean?" he asked, leaning forward in his chair.

"When winter's over and we leave here, no matter how far we get…SHIELD will eventually figure things out. If we…if we're successful, they're definitely going to figure things out, and they might not be happy about it. I suspect they're more interested in being able to block bridge travel _to_ Earth than initiate it _from _Earth. I don't have far to fall, I guess, but it could create problems for your career. I wouldn't want to happen to you what happened to me."

"Proving your theories when everyone scoffed at them, being sent to the South Pole to research them further?"

She smiled, then shrugged. "Okay, when you put it that way…. So, you're in?"

"I wouldn't have it any other way, Dr. Foster," he said with a languid smile. He wasn't worried about his "career," not yet. He was on something of an enforced sabbatical from career plans. And besides, he had no intention of being here when winter ended. By the time those dullards at SHIELD managed to see past their own infighting and notice something unexpected going on at the South Pole, he would be long gone.

/

* * *

/

"You're taking all this really well, by the way," Jane told Lucas as evening approached. Selby and Wright had come out to the DSL after lunch and had left just a few minutes ago for dinner. By unspoken agreement she and Lucas had examined current data while the South Pole Telescope techs were there, then switched back to the first external hard drive once they left. They were poring over particle emission data, but the crudeness of the readings from that first event had never seemed more glaringly evident than when viewed immediately after the data Jane had gathered here.

"What do you mean?" Lucas asked without looking up from her computer screen. He'd rolled his chair over beside hers so they could both look at the data.

"The whole mythology thing," she said, glancing over at him. "Most people would kind of freak out, I think."

"There hasn't been time. Perhaps I'll freak out later. Did you?"

Jane shook her head at him. Lucas wasn't going to freak out. Not about anything related to work, anyway. She really shouldn't have been surprised by that. When it came to work he was completely unflappable and completely dedicated, and she was grateful for it – it calmed her lingering turmoil. "Maybe a little," she admitted. "But then, these people were kind of showing up on my doorstep."

"Why yours? Can I advance the timeframe?" he added.

"Go ahead." He clicked forward and her eyes glided over the next set of data. "It all just started as a fluke, I guess. I haven't ever figured that part out. The first person, he…_landed_, is that the right term? I don't know. He landed near the area of some atmospheric anomalies I'd been observing. Then my friend, oh, my other assistant that I told you about-"

"The political science major?"

"Right. Darcy. She hit him with our car. Not hard, though. Just…well." _That_ didn't bear going into again. "So we kind of took care of him. Then a few days later these other four, friends of his, came looking for him."

"And then they all just left? You haven't heard from them again? Or anyone else?"

"Umm, yeah, they just left," Jane said, choosing to ignore the other two questions. She didn't want to get into the personal aspects of all this with him, and the general public didn't really know who Thor was, unlike some of the Avengers. There were still some lines she wasn't going to cross.

"This is a waste of time," she blurted out a couple of minutes later, pushing herself into a backwards roll and swinging the chair around so she could step out of the tight space at the desk and stretch her legs. "These readings aren't detailed enough. I've already looked at them a hundred times. We should move on to the second incident."

Lucas finally pulled himself away from the screen and swiveled in his chair to face her. "If you don't mind, I'd still like to go through it all. I _haven't_ looked at it a hundred times. It's good baseline data."

Jane sighed and rolled her neck in a slow circle, trying to work out a kink. "Okay. You go ahead. It's starting to all look random to me now. I'm beat," Jane said as a yawn escaped her. Her eyes fell on the clock on the wall. "Oh, no, wait. They've already started serving dinner. Why don't you come in, and then we can take another crack at it afterward."

"I'd rather just stay and work on it now. If I get through the first set of data I'll be caught up with you."

"Lucas, you can't keep skipping dinner. That's not good for you."

"Why, thank you for the advice, Mother. I'll take it into consideration."

Jane rolled her eyes. "At least get something from the leftovers refrigerator. If you get sick because you've been skipping half your meals I'm going to have to report on you to SHIELD," she said.

Lucas drew his head back in exaggerated surprise. "Dr. Foster. Was that…a _joke_?"

"Nope, not at all," she said, hands on hips, smile on lips.

"Leftovers refrigerator it is, then. I'll be on my best behavior."

"Good," Jane said with a swift nod.

As tired as she was, Jane felt a new surge of energy as she left the DSL and headed back out into the sun and snow for the walk back to the station. If she could joke about any of this already, then the wallowing in self-pity and disappointment stage was over. The only disappointment now would be if she failed to at least make significant progress toward creating a traversable directed bridge. And there was nothing quite like having a new problem before her that needed solving. Part of her wanted to reverse course and keep at it for a while longer tonight, but she'd hardly slept the night before and there was nothing quite like _sleep_ for being able to look at a new problem with clarity. So she continued along the flag-marked path and decided on an early start the next day to dive into the second data set. Nine months was enough time for her original plans, the plans that truly didn't require anyone's help. The expanded plans, however, ironically enough, meant it was quite a stroke of good fortune that SHIELD had provided her an assistant.

/

* * *

/

"Father…"

"Yes?" Odin responded when Thor did not continue.

Thor swallowed hard over a dry throat and glanced toward the door. "My friends are now out training with the other warriors. I…"

"You wish to join them."

"I do."

"You are needed here as well, Thor. I depart tomorrow and the protection of the realm again falls to you. Volstagg can lead them," Odin said, his voice firm but not cold.

"I know. You're right. I'll stay." He put every effort into masking his disappointment. He would do whatever his father needed him to do, go wherever his father needed him to go, be whatever his father needed him to be.

"No. You may go. Go, and do what you must, then come to me before you retire."

Thor looked at his father in confusion, but a moment later nodded and bowed his head.

"You're troubled," Frigga told her husband once Thor and then the last of the advisors had gone to prepare for an informal dinner in the feasting hall. She and Odin stood alone beside the table; Frigga was tired and allowed herself to lean against it.

Odin nodded, but remained silent for a long while. It was unusual of him, she knew. When she raised a concern with him, alone, he would either straightforwardly brush her off or straightforwardly explain what was on his mind, depending on his mood and her tone. She forced herself to be patient and wait out his silence.

"He needed this."

"Thor? What do you mean?"

"Thor needed to fight. He still has the blood of a young warrior. He needed to let out his frustration and his aggression. He can't keep them under control indefinitely. He would explode."

Frigga nodded. "You're probably right."

"I know I'm right," he corrected loudly, his voice echoing in the now-empty council hall.

After millennia with Odin, Frigga did not even react to his suddenly raised voice. She knew that having begun the conversation he would indeed explain himself, and he had long since learned that having begun the conversation he would not get away with _not_ explaining himself. So again she waited, but this time not for long.

"I've always known what Thor needed. I may have been slow at times to provide it. Reluctant. But I've always known." His eyes were fixed beyond her, on his chair at the head of the table.

Frigga nodded and looked away herself. That was only half of the explanation. But she already knew what the other half was, had in her own way tried to lead him to it several times, but had never gotten far. Odin was a king and a battlefield commander; he did not like to be questioned.

"I don't think I ever really knew what Loki needed. Not since he was a baby," he said in a voice now close to a whisper.

"He needed love."

She'd spoken calmly, without accusation , but anger flashed in Odin's eye as he lifted his chin.

"I didn't mean-"

"He's _always_ had my love. I treated him no different from Thor. I expected nothing different than from Thor."

"But he _is_ different, Odin. He always has been. Do you remember the apparition I told you about? When they were babies? She said, 'Loki needs extra love.'"

"And you coddled him over a dream."

"It wasn't a dream! A knife was left behind, don't you remember? I've never forgotten. And I didn't coddle him," she said stubbornly, hoping Odin wouldn't press. Inside was considerably more self-doubt than her bravado suggested. Whereas Odin had tried to treat Thor and Loki as though they were the same person, with the same personalities and talents and abilities, such that one son continually succeeded where another son continually failed – or at least it had seemed so to the younger – Frigga had gone the opposite direction, letting independent Thor gravitate toward his father and trusting him to be fine while keeping a protective – (over-protective?) and quick-to-excuse (too quick-to-excuse?) arm over Loki's chest.

It wasn't that simple; nothing ever was among a family. But when Frigga was irritated with her husband she told herself that he had set one son up to fail, and when she was angry with herself she feared that _she_ was the one who had failed that son. Had not been firm enough. Not clear enough when one of Loki's pranks had gone too far. Too quick to hug, brush aside offenses, and gloss over the gravity of the consequences of his actions. Even after Baldur's death, once the agony had faded to a dull ache, she'd only redoubled her efforts to love away whatever darkness troubled him. One son was more than enough to have to lose. It hadn't always been easy. Maybe it hadn't always been right.

"We spent over a thousand years doing what we thought was best, Frigg. No one goes a thousand years without making mistakes," he said.

"Even the All-Father?" she asked, letting him hook his right arm around her left. After so long together he knew her well enough to appear to read her mind, and she let herself relax into the comfort of that familiarity.

"Even the All-Father. But Loki made his own decisions. His path is his own, even now."

They walked slowly toward the door arm-in-arm. "I long for his path to lead him safely back to us."

Odin remained silent, and Frigga grew apprehensive.

He gave her hand a small squeeze as they entered the corridor, a gentle pressure the Einherjar sentry would see no sign of. "It must first lead him to himself."

/

* * *

/

Loki stayed out at the DSL until after 5AM, going over every bit of data Jane had collected from Thor's unplanned journey to Earth. Now that Jane wasn't sitting two inches away from him, it was easier to let himself be distracted by the beginning of that journey, the part that Jane hadn't seen. The part where Thor had spat shockingly venomous words against his father – Odin was objectively old but _no one_ called the All-Father a fool even in jest – and his father had erupted. Frigga could say what she wanted about Odin and his purposes, but Loki was convinced he had simply thrown a fit upon hearing his favored eldest son shout at him so hatefully and defiantly. And then, probably overcome by guilt at having dealt Thor some form of almost-actual punishment for once, he'd thrown Mjolnir after him like a life preserver to a drowning man. _We wouldn't want Thor to truly get hurt, now, would we? Can't have _him_ truly suffer._

The bifrost opened under Odin's command, and Thor was flung into its power, hands grasping at air, eyes wide in shock that was mirrored in Loki's. That day could have had any number of different outcomes, and Loki had planned for multiple variables. But he hadn't planned on fighting his way through Jotunheim. He hadn't planned on watching his arm turn Jotun blue. And he hadn't planned on finding himself Odin's sole remaining son.

Of course, he wasn't Odin's son. The shock had quickly faded – Loki was nothing if not adaptable – and he waited for his father to discuss what had happened. Just like Loki knew he did with Thor, from all the times Loki happened to be in the same room as Thor. But nothing had changed. Thor's decrease was not Loki's increase, not in Odin's eyes. Loki had waited while Odin closed the bifrost, but Odin seemed to have not even noticed his other son as he spun on his heel and strode out of the observatory, mounting Sleipnir and galloping away without a glance backward.

Thor was gone and Loki was still in his shadow. He had stood rooted in place and stared out the aperture wondering what was happening to Thor and what this would mean for himself.

And now, as odd twists of fate continued to stack upon each other, he was sitting in a Midgardian facility, claiming the backing of his enemies, and watching shaky video of the end of Thor's journey to Earth. It was thermal video, so he didn't get to see the expression on Thor's face, and the camera was fixed above the ground, so he didn't get to see Jane's political science assistant Darcy strike him with her vehicle – that would have been entertaining – but for perhaps two seconds he did get to see the indistinct image of a man falling toward an unknown fate.

The video was irrelevant. Loki knew what the bifrost looked like. He knew what it sounded like, what it smelled like, and what it felt like. But just before he shut down the computer, he pulled it up and watched it a few more times, drawn to those momentous two seconds of history on which so much else hinged. Not those _exact_ two seconds, Loki conceded, probably more precisely the two following seconds, not to mention other things that had led to those two seconds. But close enough. Loki would not be at the South Pole, sitting where he was, were it not for those two seconds.

The skies were clear and the sun shone low as ever and it was cold. Loki breathed in deeply and let the dry air fill his lungs. He trained his eye on the station and could find no sign of anyone outdoors. He used the Destination Alpha entrance to get into the warmth of the building more quickly, then went upstairs and crossed the length of the building to reach the galley. Breakfast wouldn't be served for another hour, but he hadn't eaten since lunch the day before and he was hungry, so he decided to take Jane up on her suggestion, or rather admonition, and check the leftovers refrigerator. Frozen, thawed, cooked, cooled, re-heated…at least it would fill his stomach.

The galley crew were just showing up to work, and a woman called out a greeting to Loki, who nodded back politely before opening the refrigerator. He found trays of eggplant parmesan and Salisbury steak along with a sealed container of mashed potatoes from dinner. He wrinkled his nose in distaste. The potatoes here were particularly horrible, grainy in some way he couldn't put a finger on, an affront to every potato he'd ever had in his life before this. He poked around at the smaller containers, each with a date and name – this time not the name of the dish but the name of a person. He laughed; fortune was smiling on him.

_Selby, Feb. 16_.

He grabbed a fork. It really didn't matter what the dish was; if it was completely inedible he could just vanish it away. _No_, he corrected himself, _that would be using magic for mischief_. He could dump it in the trash. _Same mischief, no magic_, he thought. _Aren't you proud of how well you're teaching me, Father?_ He stood near the refrigerator and opened the lid on the plastic container, finding some kind of noodle and vegetable dish. He didn't bother reheating the food and decided the oily noodles would probably go down a bit more pleasantly if he had done so. Nevertheless, he smiled as he quickly chewed. His mother, who had a love of good manners and had long since given up on Thor, would have been horrified that he was standing while eating his meal and using a fork as a shovel. He decided to leave enough for a bite or two in the corner of the container, then sealed it back up and put it exactly where he found it.

Petty, yes, he admitted to himself as he hurried out of the galley toward his room. But still fun. He hoped he'd get to see the expression on Selby's face. Petty, but free of consequences – no magic involved, so no enchantments invoked. If petty was all he was left with to have a bit of fun during the hard work and long days before him, then petty was perfectly acceptable.

He reached Jane's room and would have passed right by it for his own, but he heard her voice inside, which surprised him and drew him to a halt. No one else was in the corridor, so he paused to listen. From the pattern of Jane-silence-Jane-silence he knew she was using the telephone, and when he heard her say the name _Darcy_ he realized with a frown that she was using the internet-based VOIP system to call outside the South Pole.

Because he was able to control her primary means of communication with the outside world, he had worried about this secondary means from the moment he'd learned about its existence after arriving at the South Pole. He could not censor what she said or what was said to her; but for strokes of luck such as this, he wouldn't even know she'd had such communications.

He thought that perhaps if he took the time to peruse the other SHIELD programs he could access, he might locate one that would record internet-based conversations, but as he listened to the nonsensical prattle from inside Jane's room he wasn't sure it would be worth the time required to listen to all that, not to mention the aggravation inflicted.

"_No, I haven't read it yet, I'm sorry. / I know, I know. / I know, but- / It's just that- Will you let me finish? It's just that it's weird to read that stuff about _him_, you know? He's not some mythological deity to me, he's just Thor. Not that he's _just_ anything, I mean, but- / Yeah. / I know! / Okay, okay! Fine, I give up."_

The conversation went silent and some muffled noises followed. Further down the corridor someone emerged from one of the bedrooms and Loki immediately resumed walking. _That_ bit had been potentially interesting. Who knew what else she might say? What else he might learn? Perhaps there was a computer program that would convert spoken speech into written text. If so, a return visit to Jane's laptop might be worth the effort and the risk after all.

/

* * *

/

"Okay, okay! Fine, I give up," Jane said, exasperated. She pushed back in her chair and reached down to open her bottom desk drawer. A couple of other things had gotten piled on top in the meantime, so she fumbled around until she grasped the book Darcy had sent her. After rearranging a few things on her desk she set the book down and opened to page 38.

"Okaaay," Jane said, taking in the image of one woman helping another woman with some kind of weird headdress. "Tor… såsom?...Freya," she read, pronouncing the first syllable of the second word as _sass_ because she had no idea how _a_-with-a-circle-on-top was pronounced. "Thor as Freya." Jane narrowed her eyes at the translation. "Thor as Freya? Who's Freya? And what's Thor got…oh."

Upon closer inspection, although the two figures were wearing some kind of ethnic clothing that very much looked like women's clothing, the four arms visible in short-sleeved gowns were not women's arms, especially clearly so on the larger seated figure whose headdress was being affixed, a veil of some sort partially obscuring the face.

"Do I want to know what's supposed to be going on here?" Jane asked, her eyes drifting over to page 39, where an italicized caption pointed over to the image on the left. "Tor såsom Freya, Loke…brudtärna, Thor as Freya, Loke as bridesmaid, 1893, by Swedish painter Carl Larsson. Darcyyyy." Jane rested her elbow on the desk and leaned the bridge of her nose into her hand.

"You have to read the whole thing, but you want me to go ahead and tell you? It's cray-cray."

"Sure," Jane said into her arm.

"Okay. Well, so these bad guys, giants from Jotunheim-"

"Jotunheim," Jane said, correcting Darcy's pronunciation from a _jot_ to a _yote_ sound at the beginning.

"Oh, right, now you're such an expert. Whatever. So these bad guy giants from _Yot_unheim steal Thor's hammer whatchamacallit, because their king, Thrym…did I say that one right, Brainiac?"

"Beats me, I never heard of him."

"Thrym wants to marry the goddess Freya, she's like the goddess of love or something, and he won't give the hammer back unless she does. And Freya's all like _Hell, no! I'm not marrying some pervy giant_. So Heimdall comes up with Plan B, which is to put Thor in a wedding dress and try to pass him off as Freya. And his brother Loki, only they don't call him his brother in the story, he dresses up like Thor's bridesmaid and they go to _Yot_unheim and Thor apparently likes to eat a lot when he leaves home and it's a good thing we didn't have any booze on hand because apparently he really likes to put back the booze, too. Not really bride-like, you know? And Thrym gets all suspicious and Loki keeps coming up with excuses why Thor's eating like…well, like Thor. Maybe it's not the same Loki that wanted to take over the planet 'cuz this Loki kind of acts like Thor's friend."

Jane's head was swimming. It was too early in the morning for this. "They used to be friends, so it's probably the same Loki. Anyway, what happens in the end? Please don't tell me Thor gets married to the pervy giant."

"Uhhh, no. They get the hammer back and Thor turns out to be probably the most violent bride in history and he goes hammer-time on every single giant there, the king and everybody. Everybody dies. It's kinda ick, actually."

Jane sat up straight again, looked down at the picture, and tried to picture Thor wantonly killing all those people, giants, whatever. She couldn't do it. Or maybe she just really didn't want to.

Meanwhile Darcy was continuing, and Jane had already missed part of what she'd said. "And really, are those Jotunheim people that stupid? I mean Thor…he's just so…he's just so _Thor_, you know? No wedding dress in the world is going to convince anybody with eyesight that that dude's a chick. And the minute he opened his mouth, puh-lease! I guess he could claim to have the world's worst cold. Unless they don't get colds on- out there. Do they?"

"I don't know," Jane answered listlessly. As if she cared right now. Darcy didn't either, she just had a tendency to blurt out whatever thought came to mind. She also had a tendency to forget what she was and wasn't allowed to say. But Jane couldn't be bothered to care much about that anymore either.

"But he did have one thing going for him, at least according to that picture."

Jane nodded. "Uh-huh." Something seemed a little gross about it – pervy in Darcy's parlance – but it was hard not to stare at Thor's chest.

"Impressive, yeah?"

"Yeah." She closed the book. Enough about how well Thor filled out his wedding dress. "So, do you think this stuff is true?" she asked.

"Let's hope not," Darcy answered, and then, unusually for her, did not continue.

"Why? Oh, no, Darcy, what else is in here?"

"Wellllll…so you really haven't looked at any of it?"

"No, I just flipped through it, looked at a couple of the pictures. Did you know there's a painting of Thor in the British Museum?"

"Get out! Really? Wait, does it look like him?"

"Ummm, not really. No. Why?

"That's encouraging."

"Spill it, Darcy. What's in here?"

"Well, there's this long poem, basically people hurling insults back and forth at each other. Loki's doing most of the insulting. _That_ sounds more like evil-Loki. If even half of that stuff in there is true then Asgard is – I mean that place is just one big bunch of skanks. But don't worry, I'm sure it's not true anyway."

"Darcy, why should I not worry?"

"It, uh, it kinda says Thor's married. To that 'Lady Sif' we met in Puente Antiguo."

Jane let her head clunk down on the desk. Much, much, much too early.

"Jane? You okay? You still there? You didn't like pass out or something, did you? I should have told you to sit down first."

"I'm already sitting down. I didn't pass out. And Thor's not married. I'm pretty sure it would have come up at some point."

"Oh, definitely. Thor's not that kind of guy. He's honorable and all that. You shouldn't worry about it. It's really pretty funny."

Sif. The gorgeous confident warrior lady who'd fought that giant fire-breathing robot and put some kind of javelin through its neck. Who Thor had been concerned about. Who was standing right next to her when the robot knocked Thor a block down the street. "I'm not worried. And sure, it's hilarious," Jane said without a hint of humor.

"Oh, lighten up, Jane. Those stories can't be true anyway. One of them says there's a giant serpent wrapped around Earth. If there was I think the astronauts would've caught sight of it by now. And there's all kinds of crazy stories in there about Thor and Loki and a bunch of other people. Wait'll you read the one about Thor's goats. Gross. Oh, and guess what, if you and Thor get married, you're going to be Auntie Jane to a horse and a wolf and that serpent wrapped around Earth and some other weird thing, I forget. Loki is the proud papa. Mama in one case. No wonder he has _issues_. Oh! And you'll be a step-mother to-"

"Stop! Enough! Okay, that's all I can take of this for one day. Maybe for a month or two or even a year. Quite possibly a lifetime. Okay?"

"Okay. No prob. I get it, I mean, all this has left me kinda whacked, too. I'm surrounded by college boys who've never been outside the state of New Mexico. Can I come visit you at the South Pole during Spring Break?"

"Sure. Don't bother packing a bikini, though."

"Cool beans. Hey, Jane, I'm glad you caught me. I gotta run to my next class now."

"I'm glad I caught you, too. Really. It's…it was good to talk to you."

"You too. Hey, stay warm, okay?"

"I will, thanks. Talk to you later."

"Okay, bye!"

"Bye, Darcy," Jane said. She ended the call and leaned back, running a hand roughly through her hair, pulling at it. She wondered briefly if in all their magic Asgard had a memory-erasing tonic. If they did, she'd gladly take one to cover a chunk of that conversation. She knew she shouldn't let it get to her. Of course those stories were untrue. That's why it was called _mythology_. _Myths_. As in, _not true._ But there _was_ a Thor, and he _did_ have a hammer, and it _was_ called Mjolnir. There _was _an Odin, and a Frigga, and a Loki, and even a Baldur, whom Jane had first learned about from the _mythology_ before Thor confirmed it.

She felt a headache coming on.

"No," she told the headache. And the mythology. She had a new challenge to work on now, and she would put everything she had into meeting it. Everything else was on hold.

She grabbed the book and shoved it into the still-open drawer, which she closed with her slippered foot.

It was time to get dressed, get breakfast, and get to work.

* * *

/

_A couple of notes on the above: (1) Loki stealing people's personal leftovers at the South Pole is a true story. OK, not the Loki part. Well...it _could _have been Loki. As far as I know the food-snatching culprit was never identified. (2) You can find the picture in Jane's book on the Þrymskviða Wikipedia article (second picture). Whatever I know about Norse mythology pretty much comes from Wikipedia plus the occasional chat with my long-suffering Scandinavian lit expert friend...who reminds me she specialized in post-modern lit. (She still knows way more than I do about it!) Oh, and if you're interested in the battle of insults ("flyting"), look up _Lokasenna_ on Wikipedia. (3) While I didn't listen to it or have it in mind, I must confess to having thought about Aerosmith's _Dude Looks Like a Lady_ once or twice during that last scene...and _Lola_. Poor Thor. (And poor Loki!)_

_Teasers for "Chapter 21: Breakthrough" (in which there are breakthroughs of more than one type): Loki expands his control over Jane's life a bit more but also pays for it; Jane has a spat with Selby and later opens up to Lucas/Loki about things that lead Loki to think about things he'd rather not; Loki has a dream that brings both bad things and good._

_And the excerpt:_

"All right. So we have a pattern. Something that clearly isn't a coincidence. But what does it mean?" Loki asked.

"I have absolutely no idea," Jane said, sounding extremely happy for someone who'd just confessed to complete ignorance.

"Then…?"

"I don't know what it means, but I know what it is."

"All right," Loki said, steadying his voice to keep out growing frustration. She was reminding him now of one of his old teachers – one he'd liked, at the time. Times had changed. "What _is_ it, then?"

"That," she answered, touching the tip of her index finger lightly to the screen [...], "is our very first breakthrough."

_Comments? Questions? Reviews appreciated! I always respond if the PM option is available._


	22. (21) Breakthrough

_Couple of quick warnings: (1) This chapter's around 1,500 words longer than average. I try to keep them in a similar range but this one had to be what it is to accommodate the specific things I wanted to happen in it. (2) This chapter also has just a bit of the darkness in it that I've mentioned to a few of you. Nothing too jarring at this point._

_This chapter is also entirely Loki POV, which I didn't really intend for, I usually try to bounce back and forth, it just worked best that way. Have you predicted any breakthroughs?_

_(Reply to jaqueline: Thank you! Yes, I really, truly did; found an e-mail address on a blog and it snow-balled. And, I will check out your suggestion, thanks!)_

_/_

* * *

**Beneath**

**Chapter Twenty-One – Breakthrough**

It was his own doing that Jane spent virtually every waking minute with him now and decided that walking back and forth to the station for meals was a waste of time, so Loki was in no position to complain when the opportunity to gain access to Jane's laptop did not immediately present itself.

Wednesday was split between examining new data – frustrating for Loki because he wasn't sure what he was supposed to be looking for, and Jane only said she'd know it when she saw it – and poring over SHIELD's extensive bifrost data amassed when Thor's friends had arrived. She never named them, never referred to them more specifically than "people who came through the bridge." She did once slip and use the word _bifrost_, after which she helpfully explained that that was what the people from Asgard called an Einstein-Rosen bridge, and that they also called it a "Rainbow Bridge," apparently different terms for the same thing. Loki had nodded thoughtfully then snickered silently as soon as his back was turned. He and Thor had called it the Rainbow Bridge when they were children, and a thousand years on Thor had yet to grow up.

The bifrost data brought with it its own distracting memories. In these numbers, lines, charts, graphs, blips, beeps, and images were written his downfall. _The_ downfall. The only one that really mattered. He had told them from the throne itself in terms that could not have been clearer that Thor could not be brought back. Perhaps they'd thought him a usurper; they certainly didn't bother to hide their disdain for his authority. They'd never trusted him, especially Sif and Hogun. But Heimdall _knew_. He could not have failed to notice the peaceful transfer of power, or the plain fact that Loki had not expected it. He'd been suspicious of Loki's actions on Jotunheim, but had sworn his obedience to his new king.

And he'd permitted the Three and Sif to go after Thor anyway.

And _that_ had forced Loki's hand, pushing him into doing things he'd never intended to do, never imagined he'd do. No matter what, he couldn't allow Thor back to Asgard. Not then. Not before his plans had time to come to fruition. Not before his father – when perhaps he could have still claimed him as father – had woken and seen what he'd accomplished.

And it hadn't even worked. Not only had it not worked, it had entirely backfired. Sending the Destroyer had resulted in an angry restored Thor returning instead of a powerless mortal Thor. Never had one of his plans gone so horribly wrong. Not since Baldur, anyway, and he'd been a mere 33 years old then.

Jane had caught him in one such moment of reflection, when he'd been staring blankly at the computer with who knows what expression on his face and his white-knuckled fists had gripped the edge of the desk. She'd put a hand on his shoulder and started to say something, but he jerked away and bit off the beginning of an angry shout. He'd mumbled an apology, said he had a headache. She'd told him to go take a break from the computer, but he'd responded out of suppressed irrational rage that he was fine. If he'd been thinking more clearly he would have thanked her for her concern and gone straight to her room.

Thursday morning brought house mouse duties again, but this time it was shoveling snow that was starting to build up in drifts around the DA, DZ, and emergency exit stairs. Given a choice he would have pointed a finger and redirected the snow, for princes much less kings did not perform manual labor and the only thing he'd ever shoveled was sand in a toy bucket as a child. But stuck out in full view of Jane, Selby, and Wright, he put his back into it and shoveled. He was rather surprised to find he actually enjoyed it. The exertion was minimal for him, compared to the mortals, just enough to make him forget the cold for a while and appreciate the use of his muscles. By the time he was nearing the completion of the task, he was humming the tune to some old song whose full lyrics he couldn't remember, about cold moonlit nights and shimmering fairies alighting in golden birch trees. He paused to look around him and realized the strange sensation he was experiencing was peace. It wouldn't last, he knew; it faded even as his eyes fell on his "teammates" working on the other staircases. But it had been pleasant enough while it lasted, and he still felt calmer than he had before. He wondered if this was why so many of the others here went to the gym and used those bicycles and running mats that went nowhere. It had seemed pointless to him at the time, but he _was_ used to a more vigorous lifestyle than sitting in a chair all day, and he thought perhaps he should give it a try. If nothing else, perhaps it would help him with the increasingly onerous task of being Lucas day after day.

When they were done Jane was panting and stretching her back but eager to get out to the DSL, and loathe though Loki was to miss any time looking at that data himself, now was the perfect opportunity to make a few more modifications to her laptop.

He told Jane he wanted to go back to his room and change clothes and that she should go on without him. Selby and Wright went into the station with him; they spent most of their time in the station's lab while he and Jane worked almost exclusively from the DSL. Loki exchanged brief greetings with someone he passed in the berthing wing, doubling back to Jane's room once he was alone in the corridor.

Recalling the apprehension he'd felt when he did this at McMurdo, he put his right hand on the doorknob and gave a smooth twist to the right, pushing inward. And there he was. He hadn't been in her room since he'd helped her put her poster on the wall. Nothing he saw surprised him now. Piles of various objects he didn't look closely at covered the desk and its shelves, except for a cleared area next to the laptop where she probably took notes. The bed was expectedly unmade, some large device he hadn't seen before was on the floor next to the bed, and two drawers of her wardrobe were open. He took these things in with a quick glance, then walked over to her desk, pausing at the chair.

There was always a chance Jane would do something unpredictable and return, and since all she had to do was turn the knob there'd be little warning, but he'd planned for this in advance. If she walked in, she wouldn't find _him_ typing into her keyboard. He'd changed forms three times now since being sent to Midgard – twice appearing as Mohsin Tarkani, for which he'd paid no price, and once as Jane, for which he had. As Mohsin he hadn't interacted with anyone; as Jane he had. So, he figured, so long as Jane did _not_ walk in on him – and she almost certainly would not – he would not be punished. And if she _did _walk in, it would be worth the price.

A curse fell from Selby's mouth when it turned out he was wrong. He grabbed onto the back of the chair as the familiar pain shot up his leg. _What is the _difference?! _I haven't been seen. I haven't been caught!_ He clenched his teeth to stop himself from shouting these words at the top of his lungs.

He glanced down at his shorter body. He appeared to be dressed as Selby was today, but his own black leather satchel still hung over his shoulder and under his right arm. It would be an immediate give-away if Jane walked in and she were at all observant. He hesitated only a moment before vanishing it from sight, refusing to behave as a child with a security blanket. And in the unlikely event he needed his mother's gift, it would take little additional time to retrieve the satchel from its invisible hiding spot.

He sat down and turned on the laptop, then opened his own e-mail where he'd already sent a message with the attachment he needed. He downloaded the attachment, a sneaky little file that would record voice traffic, convert it to text, and save it to an invisible folder within her e-mail; anything within that folder would be automatically sent to his e-mail account every time she logged into her e-mail account. Finally, he added one further protection that would be triggered by the use of his true name. His work done, he logged out of his account, deleted its presence in her internet browser history, and smirked at the computer. He would have to remember to send SHIELD and Barton personally a heartfelt thank-you note before he left this forsaken realm.

He stood and made his way to the door, pressing his ear to it to listen for sounds in the corridor.

_You're only sorry you were caught._

Loki jerked upright as though the door had burned his ear.

That voice. Odin's, he realized a second later. But the words held the overpowering association of _father_. Of fear. Yet he couldn't place them. He closed his eyes, and when he concentrated, he could hear the words again. Wrapped in the authority of a stern king and an enraged father. Time slipped away and Loki knew exactly when and where he'd heard those words. Baldur was dead and Loki faced eighteen years of punishment, one for every year of his brother's life. His heart raced, his hands went to his forehead to push through his hair and pulled away in shock when they met bare scalp. He stared at his shaking hands in horror for they were not his hands at all.

Then he remembered. He allowed himself one shaky breath to force aside those memories and the accompanying momentary loss of sense of time and place, then put his ear carefully to the door again. This time there was silence both in the corridor and in his mind. He stepped out and slipped into his own room two doors down, where he returned to his own familiar form – his own long thin fingers and his own hairline and his own height. Memories of times he'd rather forget began to pull at him again. He set his jaw, retrieved his satchel, and went back out into the corridor, having given up some small degree of control over magic for no reason whatsoever in the end.

He'd stayed up all night with Jane's data again and hadn't checked her e-mail, so he decided to make a quick trip to the computer lab.

And there it was. It had to happen eventually. An outgoing e-mail to her Australian friend, and another to the woman she'd met at McMurdo, both mentioning an assistant named Lucas. To Young-Soo she wrote that he was "rich and spoiled and kind of strange but a fast learner," and to Morgan she wrote that he was "moody but okay to work with." He smiled faintly at the less-than-stellar reports. She would have been more effusive in her praise if she knew he'd never heard of a quark until a couple of weeks ago. More effusive still if she knew he could now hold out his palm and show her a quark.

It was decision time. Morgan was irrelevant. A random person unconnected to anyone else in Jane's life, unaware of her involvement in anything beyond typical scientific research. And she already knew Lucas existed. He sent the e-mail on its way. Young-Soo, however, was a friend, and a close enough one that Jane was doing favors for him here, running trials on two of his inventions. Loki wasn't certain, but based on other e-mails to or from him, he suspected Young-Soo may know more about Jane's other activities. It was even possible he had connections to SHIELD. It was a risk either way, but Loki decided the greater risk was in allowing Jane to tell this man about him. He deleted the three sentences that referenced him and approved the message.

A few minutes later he was rushing out to the DSL, but he wasn't particularly worried about Jane wondering why he'd been gone so long. She lost track of time so easily while working she probably wouldn't even realize how long it had been.

"Hey, what took you so long?" she asked as soon as he made it to the lab, her back to him, not looking up from her computer.

Loki blinked away his surprise.

"Never mind. Just come over here," she said without moving, saving him from coming up with an excuse that for once he'd not bothered to think of in advance. "Look at this." She pointed to a long series of dots and dashed vertical lines that she began slowly scrolling through once Loki was standing behind her, peering over her shoulder.

"Muons? From neutrino collisions?" he asked, recognizing the pattern.

"But look at the number of them."

Loki nodded. A lot of dots, a lot of lines, a lot of breaks in the lines – a lot of muons resulting from a lot of neutrino collisions. "We looked at this set of data yesterday." She had been intrigued by it then, given her particular interest in neutrinos.

"No, we didn't."

He narrowed his eyes, stared down at the top of her head as though he could peer inside. _Is she working so hard she's losing her mind?_ he wondered. "Yes, Jane, we did."

She stood up and reached for his shoulder, pushing him downward. He let her do it, and would have laughed at her audacity had he not been concerned about her mental stability.

"No, _Lucas_, we didn't. Look at the hard drive," she said once they'd switched places.

He leaned over to see the label on the external drive. The number _2_ was printed on it. He turned and looked up at her. "You've moved on to the third event."

She nodded triumphantly. "Look at the time scale."

He scrolled slowly down the screen, then up again. "This burst occurred at a similar time relative to event impact," he observed, easily slipping into the terminology he'd learned from her and from his readings.

"Not similar," she corrected. "Exact. The first and last muons detected are within nanoseconds of their parallels in the second event. _That_ is not a coincidence."

Loki nodded. Neutrino collisions were rarely observed; more were seen through the South Pole's odd Ice Cube telescope looking down through the planet's core than had ever been seen before. Until now. "Have you checked the fourth event?"

"Not yet. Wanna make a bet on what we'll see?"

"I don't think it would be wise to bet against you, Dr. Foster," Loki said with a hint of a smile.

"Okay, well, go ahead, switch 'em out. You know," she continued as Loki disengaged the second drive and replaced it with the third, concealed under some file folders in the bottom drawer of her desk, "I'm never sure if you're making fun of me when you call me that."

"I assure you I mean it with only the utmost respect," he said, meeting her eyes with his most angelic face. Which he knew made him look anything but.

"Yeah. You also use it when you're annoyed at me."

"You _wound_ me, Jane," he said with a pained expression before turning back to the computer. He pulled up the relevant data set and ran it through the program that would extract evidence of neutrino activity. It would take a while for the program to analyze all the data, but as it worked backward from impact, only a few minutes later it was already clear that the timing of the last muon lined up precisely with that of the second and third events, about two seconds prior to impact.

"Yes!" Jane exclaimed as soon as that muon appeared on the monitor.

"All right. So we have a pattern. Something that clearly isn't a coincidence. But what does it mean?" Loki asked.

"I have absolutely no idea," Jane said, sounding extremely happy for someone who'd just confessed to complete ignorance.

"Then…?"

"I don't know what it means, but I know what it is."

"All right," Loki said, steadying his voice to keep out growing frustration. She was reminding him now of one of his old teachers – one he'd liked, at the time. Times had changed. "What _is_ it, then?"

"That," she answered, touching the tip of her index finger lightly to the screen where the evidence of a neutrino collision appeared, "is our very first breakthrough."

/

* * *

/

Breakthroughs aside, weeks passed without further progress.

Jane and Loki both were able to identify further correlations between the four events in the same time scale, but they were no closer to discovering what caused them, or what they meant. The additional correlations couldn't even be considered further breakthroughs, because they only pointed to the same thing: _something_ was happening in a very specific, brief period of time shortly before the bifrost deposited its travelers on the ground.

The passage of time was marked by the sun as it bobbled around the sky sinking lower with each day, the corresponding steady drop in the already freezing temperatures, and the schedule of unavoidable rotating cleaning duties that every other week now included the "dishpit," which required Loki to plunge his arms into greasy, filthy water to scrub the muck off of pots and pans and other people's dishes, and in unobstructed view of others so magic provided no out.

Despite the moments of unpleasantness, Loki found himself lulled by the relative monotony of working with Jane day in and day out, even half-days on Sunday now, continuing his own studies, learning the gym equipment to use to relax in the middle of the night when he could usually be alone, and keeping close tabs on everything Jane did. Unsettling dreams – nightmares, really, though he refused to think of them as such, since nightmares only plagued children – occasionally disturbed him, so he permitted himself sleep only every third or fourth night.

They had gone through all of the data on the external drives, returning to it again and again to analyze it in different ways; SHIELD's data was remarkably good and drew on everything from telescopes on Earth to satellites orbiting far above it. Jane's own instruments continued to return data as well, including data that was intended to inform the very problems they were trying to solve. The cycle was neverending. Obtain new data. Examine new data. Re-examine old data. Obtain new data. Repeat.

Despite the lack of progress, Jane remained undeterred. Loki would pause to close his eyes and stop the numbers from swimming on the screen before him, and look to Jane and surprise himself with emerging admiration. She would chew on a pencil, pace the room and mutter to herself, massage her temple or her neck, and keep right on working. Her dedication he chose to take the credit for. But her relentless energy was all her own.

They interacted little with others, and good-natured pressure to attend social events had mostly died out as they gained the reputation for being loners. Now that he rarely saw him, Loki had largely forgotten about the bothersome Selby Higgins, along with the rest of the mortals here that were of no consequence to him. Jane, however, was still disturbed by Selby's supposed betrayal. One afternoon in mid-March, she apparently decided to test Selby as she'd tested "Lucas."

Loki heard them coming before Jane and strode quickly to her computer to disconnect the external drive. Startled out of intense concentration, she tried to bat his hand away before she, too, realized company was coming. He had the drive back in its drawer and was attentively examining an unknown data stream she'd activated when they entered the office.

Selby and Wright tried for some idle chatter as they always still did when they wound up working in the same space, but Jane out of the blue asked why Selby arrived at the station so much later than the other scientists.

"It wasn't supposed to be me," he explained, standing next to Wright. "But the guy who was originally going to be stuck out here with Wright all winter failed his psych eval. So they were scrambling to find someone to come out, and I was hoping to go next year, and, voila, they offered to bump it up a year. I said yes, as long as I could wait until after the wedding."

"I can almost tolerate Selby when I remind myself that I could've had some nutjob out here instead," Wright said.

"I hear it's the sane ones they fail and the claustrophobic paranoid freaks they pass," Selby said, smirking at Wright.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Jane asked, or rather demanded. If she'd been a cat her fur would have been standing straight on end, Loki imagined.

Selby stammered for a moment and Wright stared skeptically with raised eyebrows. "Nothing," Selby managed to get out. "It's just a joke. Rodrigo…"

_High marks for entertainment value – _he inflated the score because he was starved for entertainment_ – low marks for subtlety._

"Yeah, I'm gonna go get to work on…that thing," Wright said and left.

Selby muttered an awkward apology and followed him out toward the telescope.

"What time is it?" Jane asked.

Loki glanced down at the computer screen right in front of her. "2:48."

"Perfect. It's 7:48 yesterday evening on the East Coast. I'm going to the station to make a phone call." She stood up and turned to go without logging off her computer.

"Jane," he said, holding out his arm and partially blocking her exit. "Don't say something you'll regret." _Don't say something _I'll_ regret_, he thought.

"I don't- I just want to talk to a friend right now, okay. Can I go now?"

From the look in her eyes, he knew if he didn't lower his arm she'd soon try to push through it. So he lowered it, and watched her back through narrowed eyes. She hated the fifteen minutes of wasted time it took to traverse the packed snow between the DSL and the station, thirty minutes for a round trip, plus the time required to add and remove layers of clothing. What did she need to say so badly to this _friend_ that she couldn't say to him, when he was standing right there?

But with the amount of work before them now and the long hours they spent on it, they rarely spoke of anything other than that work. They were not _friends, _for all the time they spent together. In a moment of privacy after their first night of dishpit duty, she'd asked him just how many servants his family had. _Many_, he'd answered with a withering smile. She'd wanted to ask, he'd recognized the curiosity and urge to seek answers that he was so familiar with, but she hadn't. And he was ready with answers, but felt no need to volunteer anything unnecessary when no further manipulation was needed.

"Hey, uh, Lucas?"

Loki looked up into the corridor, startled. Selby stood there, peering into the office, presumably making sure Jane had really left. Loki walked over to the doorway, and Selby took a few more steps forward.

"What's up with Jane? Did you, uh…did you tell her about those rumors you mentioned to me?"

"No, of course not."

"Because I swear I don't see her that way. There's nothing going on."

"I understand. I didn't say anything."

"I've tried to keep my distance, you know, not give people any reason-"

The thick exterior door swung open, and Loki sincerely regretted that he couldn't take any credit whatsoever for this moment.

"Thanks, Lucas. I'll, uh, I'll let you know if we need any help," Selby said, tearing his gaze away from Jane standing in the door.

"Of course, Selby, I'd be glad to," Loki answered with sugary friendliness. Selby turned away, nodding at Jane as he passed her on the way back to the other side of the building.

"I forgot to log off the computer," Jane said once he disappeared down the hallway. "Figured I'd work from the station's lab the rest of the day." She squeezed past where Loki was still standing in the door to the office area and went over to her computer, not meeting his eyes. "What was that all about?" she asked, her back to him.

"Questions. He wanted to know if I'd told you that he was asking me about you. I told him you were just irritable because you've been working so hard."

"Irritable, huh?" she repeated, standing up from the computer. Then some of the tension drained from her posture and she sighed. "Have I been? Irritable?"

"Not unbearably so."

She nodded. "Sorry. I'll try to do better than 'bearably irritable.'"

"There's no need to apologize. You've every right to be bearably irritable."

She laughed at that. "Still. I'll do better. You want to stay out here?"

He thought it over briefly, and saw no reason to. They worked well as a team, and he was not too arrogant to admit – to himself, at least – that he had a deeper understanding of the data when they went through it together.

So nearly an hour later he met her back in the Science Lab, where he was going over particle emissions analysis from the South Pole data, searching for evidence of neutrino collisions and, as usual, finding none. She sat at her desk and stared at the computer, which she had not turned on. He shouldn't ask. He really shouldn't. He would find out before long anyway. But she was distracted. And so was he. Her need to confide in someone other than him, after all his efforts, bothered him more than he cared to acknowledge.

"Who did you call?" he asked softly. Austin and Carlo were not far away, although not close enough to hear if he kept his voice down.

"A friend of mine," she said, still staring at the computer.

Loki nodded once, waited another moment, then decided he could not appropriately ask further if she were unwilling to answer. He would read the text file during the next satellite window. He was just turning to go back to his work when she spoke again.

"I feel so ashamed."

Loki stared at her with rapt attention. He had never seen her like this before. He'd seen Jane happy, angry, excited, annoyed, betrayed. He wasn't sure what he was seeing now, but he knew it was somehow deeper. Something she rarely revealed, certainly not to him.

"Of what?" he finally asked, when seconds stretched well past a minute and he wondered if she even remembered she'd spoken aloud.

Her eyes darted over to him then back to the computer, and he could see the walls start to go up and she looked a little more like herself...but not entirely so. "My friend, Erik, he went through something terrible, and he's better now, I mean, he's fine, but…but he's not. He has trouble sleeping, he gets stressed out at work."

Loki frowned. This was dangerous territory. He knew exactly who she was talking about, of course. The scientist to whom he'd first been directed. The man whose mind he'd filled with his own will through a taste of the tesseract's power. The man who'd told him everything he needed to know about Jane – or almost everything, he thought, remembering the initial version of his plan. He couldn't imagine why Jane felt any shame concerning him. Especially not when he himself did not. He'd never hurt Erik Selvig. And he'd seen with his own eyes – while his mouth had been gagged and his wrists shackled as he awaited return to Asgard – how hearty and hale the man had been, no worse the wear for his time spent working for his sovereign. Selvig should consider himself lucky. No harm had come to him, and the tesseract had granted him knowledge he could have never otherwise gained. Others, including Loki himself, had certainly fared far worse.

He was just thinking back to the first time he'd seen Selvig, in Puente Antiguo, never imagining at the time how important the man would become to him, when Jane suddenly swiveled in her chair so that she was facing him.

"My problems are so trivial. And there I go running off to him like I'm fifteen years old again, so wrapped up in my own worries that I forget he's got his own. I mean, I didn't really tell him about it, not everything, I don't talk about that stuff on the phone, and he knows better than to bring it up. You know, he was right all along. He never trusted them from the start. He knew exactly what they were. I still don't understand why he locked himself away working for them after what he said about them."

She stopped to sigh, then knead the bridge of her nose. Loki wondered if she was more tired than she let on.

"I haven't been able to see him since before New York. And now we can't even do video calls. He deserves better than that from me. I _owe _him more than that."

"He must be very important to you."

"He is," she said with a nod. "He's the closest thing I've got to family. He was my guardian after my parents were killed."

"When you were…fifteen?" he asked, going by the number she'd used earlier, although it wasn't the same number Selvig had told him.

"No, fourteen. And it was supposed to be him and his wife, they were both good friends with my parents, but Mindy died a few years before them. So it was just me and Erik. And I…I've really got to stop letting him take care of me all the time. I need to figure out a way to take care of him."

"You should stop worrying about him. I'm sure he wouldn't want you to."

She frowned, glanced at her computer for a moment and turned it on. "Sometimes what we want isn't what's best for us," she said when she met his eyes again. Loki saw there something worrisome, a flickering doubt about something, and he hoped it was still about Erik and not about their project.

But then the computer whirred to life and she turned her attention to it, and it was as if the strange little interlude had never happened.

/

* * *

/

Loki went to bed – seeking sleep for the first time in four nights – thinking about Jane and the dire straits she imagined Erik Selvig to be in. Thus far he'd tried hard _not_ to think about everything that had happened before on Midgard, except through the filter of a cold impersonal analysis of the decisions he'd made, and even that had been difficult and never fully completed. Because his decisions hadn't been entirely impersonal. And because every time his mind collided with the personal, anger and other things less easily identifiable flared and interfered with his ability to process simple cause and effect.

Erik hadn't been a mistake; that much was clear. Although he couldn't find much satisfaction in gaining followers through an enslaving touch to the chest – where was the accomplishment in _that_? – it was efficient, and more importantly effective. Selvig had done exactly what he needed him to do, and Loki hadn't even needed to tell him. The scepter forged a one-way conduit between Loki's and his target's mind, communicating Loki's will and imparting a pure desire to accomplish it.

He'd chosen his targets well. Could not have chosen better in fact…unless he'd chosen _more_. But he'd wanted to _win _Midgard, to truly win it. To _convince_ its inhabitants to surrender and acknowledge him as king of the entire realm, and ultimately to confess their need for him. Not to turn them into a bunch of puppets submitting against their will. Still, he could have taken a few more. A few key others. And he had tried, in a fit of anger, once, after cracks had appeared in his plans. But he could have done more. He could have…

An image of Thor appearing inside the SHIELD aircraft suddenly crowded out everything else in his mind. He had been startled by the telltale storm; Thor's arrival was unexpected. But he was a prisoner only in the minds of his supposed captors. He could have called the scepter to his freed hands, just like Thor called Mjolnir. Or later. Instead of dropping Thor from that flying city, he could have separated him from his hammer. He could have –

And instantly the impersonal became overwhelmingly personal.

Some questions must not be asked, some thoughts not entertained. Loki could not allow those _things_ simmering inside him to boil over. They would rip him apart and consume him.

He had to stay _focused_.

He rolled over from his side, pressing his face into the pillow. He'd been thinking about Erik. And Jane. Erik had spoken of her with such love and affection and pride. More than he could recall being shown by his own father, the man who'd called himself his father since infancy. Jane had been practically an adult when Selvig took on the role of father, and he had never called himself that. These thoughts, too, made something burn in the pit of his stomach, but this he recognized and had no trouble naming. Hatred had become a familiar friend, easier to control.

He tried to remember himself at age fourteen. Pinpointing one year among a thousand was no easy task, but this year was anchored by a significant event: his mother's announcement that she was pregnant. He remembered his shock and disbelief, then happiness at the thought that there would be a baby and he would be its older brother.

More troublesome thoughts. He considered and rejected getting up and going back to work. He needed to keep his mind sharp, and that meant sleep. He could feel it pressing against his eyelids, pushing them downward, and he let them close.

He remembered the days before the announcement. When Thor had gotten him drunk on purpose, for fun. So drunk in the end he'd been near death, after Thor had gotten bored and left. He remembered the haze of the next day. His mother's arms. Thor's palm stinging his face. His father's laughter.

He slipped into sleep slowly, part of him still resisting, and the memory fed into a dream bled dry of color.

_He flinched, anticipating the blow though his eyes were closed and he was barely awake. Thor's open palm slammed into his left cheek. "Loki, wake up! Do you hear me? Open your eyes. You're going to eat this. If you don't I'm going to bash your head in. It's just bread, Loki, come on. You have to eat your own lunch for once." His voice was so loud Loki would have sworn it could be heard on Vanaheim._

_Loki struggled to open his eyes. He was on his bed underneath piles of blankets and furs, leaning against the headboard. He was still dressed in his formal attire, more or less – a few random items had been shed the night before. Thor was on his knees in front of him; beyond his brother, near the footboard, his mother also sat on the bed, her legs tucked away underneath her gown. She looked upset. Thor's hand was coming up to hit him again._

"_I'll eat…the bread," he rasped, his eyes narrowed in a glare. "Just shut up."_

_Thor turned away to look at Mother. When he turned back he was bringing a chunk of bread to Loki's mouth. It was dry, and his mouth was dry. It was difficult to chew. More difficult to swallow._

_He had barely gotten it down when Thor was pressing another piece of bread to his lips. This time he hadn't yet managed to swallow when more bread came. He tried to see past Thor, tried to get Mother's attention. His mouth was full. More bread. He was choking. He couldn't breathe. He was drowning. No air. Thor grinned at him and shoved more bread in his mouth. Loki tried to shout for help, for Thor to stop, but no sound made it past the bread._

_Father was laughing. Loki stood outside his parents' bedroom. He'd wanted to talk to them, to his father, but now he stood frozen in place. They were talking about _him_. "I was sixteen the first time I got drunk on mead."_

"_Just because you did something foolish and dangerous doesn't make it right. And Loki is fourteen." Mother was irate._

"_That's-"_

"_And Loki is not-"_

"_I know what Loki is. And what he is not. He's not one of us. But he's fine. Let him blunder about in his folly of youth. You have to stop treating Loki like he's going to break."_

_Not one of us. Loki's heart hammered in his chest as he backed away slowly from the door he'd been eavesdropping behind. But he wasn't watching where he was going, and he backed into a low table, falling to the floor and sending items he never even saw crashing to the floor. The door flew open. Angry faces stared down at him._

_His bare feet pounded the cold, hard marble stairs. He rounded a corner and found himself in the throne room. Father was there, angry, rising, Gungnir in his hand. He darted through an open doorway, past Thor whose arm was extended, patiently waiting for Mjolnir. Hugin and Munin flew past. He looked up at them, and when he looked down again the bifrost was beneath his feet, lighting his every step. Heavier footsteps followed. He glanced over his shoulder and saw his fully-grown brother closing the distance between them. Loki willed himself to grow as well but he did not, and his strides remained shorter than Thor's. He glanced behind him again. This time when his neck whipped back around the bifrost came to a sudden jagged stop immediately before him. He tried to dig his bare heels into the smooth dead surface as his momentum threatened to carry him over the edge._

"_I know what you are."_

_Loki spun around, glancing back and forth between his brother and the perilous edge. Thor raised Mjolnir and had Loki's full attention. "We all know what you are."_

"_No! No, I'm not. I'm not one of them, Thor, I swear it! Let me prove it!"_

"_I'm looking at the proof, Loki Laufeyson."_

_Thor's stare, so full of disgust, burned into him. He looked down at his hands sticking out from the sleeves of his thin sleeping tunic. "No!" he screamed, clawing at the dark blue skin with his sharpened fingernails. He clawed harder when the blood that appeared was not the red of an Aesir. Incoherent words of denial and fear and pain fell from his lips._

"_You aren't worthy of being Odin's son, or my brother, or even an Aesir. You never were."_

_Loki fell silent. Trembling hands, sliced to the bone, fell to his side._

_Thor stepped closer. Mjolnir was gone. Loki stared up at him. "You don't belong here. You don't belong anywhere except with the rest of those monsters."_

_Loki's jaw fell open but still he could not speak. "I'm not a monster," he wanted to say, but it was a lie, and now, finally, lies deserted him._

_It was a gentle touch, in the end, not at all a savage blow. Just a nudge to the shoulder. Thor pushed. Loki fell._

_He could see them as he fell. Thor. Father standing beside him, his arm wrapped around his real son's shoulder. Mother standing to the side, watching coldly._

_No-no-no. Mother disappeared. Father and Thor laughed. They shrank and merged and faded from view. He left them behind, turning mid-fall to meet his fate. The cold grew and Loki thought he must have turned into ice. Then came a gaping mouth and a blast of heat and he thought he would burn alive. He was in a tunnel, still falling but with no sense of motion._

_He couldn't breathe. He was choking. There was bread stuffed in his mouth. He was freezing. It was completely dark. An opening appeared in the wall of the tunnel, letting in starlight. He tried to reach it. Through the opening he saw himself, his adult self, in familiar leather, armor, and green cloth. But that Loki was screaming. Screaming so loud he pressed his wounded hands to his ears to block out the horrific noise. He would have screamed with his grown self had he been able to breathe._

_The tunnel sealed shut. The darkness was absolute._

_Hands from an unseen body pressed against his shoulders. Cold metal followed by a puff of steaming air brushed his right ear._

"_Did you not believe? Did you think we would not find you in this barren land?"_

Loki's eyes shot open. Thin air rushed into his lungs. He threw back the covers, sat up, and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. Agonizing minutes passed before he remembered his satchel. He stretched toward the metal post at the head of the bed and grabbed the bag, shoving a hand inside and struggling for far longer than it should have taken to get to the little crystal vial. He clutched it tightly in his fist for a moment before becoming truly aware of his surroundings. He was in his room at the South Pole on Midgard. In his bed. In his nightclothes. In his own body. Alone. He laughed. The sound was intended to drive away any lingering threat, but it came out nervous and weak, revealing every bit of the fear that remained within him.

He threw his hands up in front of his face, barely aware of the small object in his right hand. His own hands, the way they had always looked. Scratched up, with a couple of small smears of drying blood, but even the blood he took comfort in, because it was dark red, exactly the color it was supposed to be.

He had been dreaming, he realized. The memories weren't quite right. He knew that, but in the immediate aftermath of the dream he struggled to recall what was real and what wasn't. His mother staring down at him without emotion – _that_ he knew was false. He'd rejected it even while still dreaming.

Suddenly the words he'd heard right before waking came back to him, and he knew why the potion his mother had given him was in his hand. That dream was not like any other he'd had. It was vivid. It sent a message. They'd found him.

He allowed that thought to send shivers down his spine for a while before he added to it. They'd found him, but they weren't here. _He_ wasn't here. Loki was alone. Still safe. They'd come for him in what must be the only way they were able – through his dreams.

He took a deep breath, and calm – or something close enough to it – washed over him. He replaced the tiny glass bottle with its dark red contents deliberately if reluctantly, but kept the satchel by his side. He reviewed the dream, still quite clear in his mind, clearer than the memories it mimicked.

_Thor making him eat bread._ Yes. And no. They'd said he had to eat, and Thor made him eat the way Thor knew best, by force. But he hadn't choked him; that was years before any real animosity developed between them. _His parents talking about him_. Yes, he'd gone to talk to Odin, but something was off. He vaguely recalled being startled by what he heard, yes. But…"not one of us?" He would have been terrified had he heard that. He didn't remember tripping over a table, and he knew he hadn't been chased through the palace. _The bifrost_…almost everything about that was a blur. _Falling_. He would never forget falling. He wished he could forget it. The cold, the heat, the mouth of a tunnel, the lack of air. Pain that gripped him from the outside as brutally as the pain from the inside.

Suddenly his mind seized upon something. _The mouth of a tunnel_. He squeezed his eyes shut. He could picture it clearly, though only in short bursts before he pushed it away each time, instinctively defending himself from the memory. There was a blast of heat when he entered the tunnel. But he'd already been falling, pulled through the remnants of something left open by the bifrost observatory and collapsing around him. The tunnel, though, was unaffected, even after the mouth disappeared. He'd been in there for what felt like an eternity. No light, no sound, no air. Falling without motion. Because there was nowhere to fall _to_, and where he'd fallen _from_ was gone. Like being sent flying through the bifrost but getting stuck midway through. He remembered wishing for air in his burning lungs so that he could laugh long and hard at the cruelty of his fate. He wasn't sure what he'd expected after Thor pushed him – when he let go, he remembered now; he hadn't exactly had time to think it through. But it hadn't been never-ending agony from the inability to breathe and sensory deprivation that would slowly drive him mad. In that moment he'd only wanted escape – escape from those faces that looked down at him. He'd just managed the greatest accomplishment of his life, and it was rejected. _He_ was rejected.

_Focus!_ he hissed at himself yet again. Letting his thoughts drift off into such sentiment was counterproductive. Because his erstwhile ally, in choosing to torment him through a dream, had also made him re-examine a memory in a new light. He thought he knew what that memory meant. He was confident he knew what it was: a breakthrough.

But he wasn't sure how he was going to explain Yggdrasil to Jane.

* * *

/

_Reviews appreciated!_

_BTW: If you're curious about the "true" story about Loki getting drunk when he was 14, this is included in my other story,_ Magic & Mead_, which you can find from my profile page. (added 1/13/13)_

_Teasers from Ch. 22 "Allies": Asgard grows ever more concerned and has growing reasons to do so; Vanaheim's Gullveig delivers an ultimatum even worse than feared; Lucas tried to explain his theory to a bleary-eyed Jane._

_And the excerpt (Gullveig talking):_

"You continue to speak as though you only hear my voice. I assure you, when _I_ speak you are hearing the voice of seven realms. The dark elves neglected only Midgard in their journeys, for they are too ignorant of us to offer an opinion. If you don't believe me, ask the others. They'll speak to you now. But you'll hear no different. We make three simple, reasonable demands, Odin. If you refuse, we will join together and take what we demand, and upon your defeat we will divide up all the treasures in your weapons vault among us so that _your_ safety and continued existence depend upon us, and not the other way around. You have two weeks."


	23. (22) Allies

**Beneath**

Chapter Twenty-Two – Allies

Thor and Odin stood before the portal to Vanaheim, the only realm other than Alfheim which required no further power or magic to reach. Vanaheim was the closest of the realms, both physically and in the relations of the two peoples. Multiple portals spanned the two realms. It had been so long since anyone had bothered tracking them that no one knew their number or all of their locations. Now, at Tyr's insistence, they had located and mapped all 34 of them, along with the three well-known passages to Alfheim. The data had been gathered as surreptitiously as possible, but still some citizens – including Vanir – had raised questions about the sudden interest. The portals were not guarded, and never had been since the Vanir-Aesir war, when there were only two gateways. They were, however, irregularly and covertly patrolled now, usually by out-of-uniform Einherjar who had some other legitimate reason to be in the area, for plausible deniability.

For Thor, who had never known the Vanir as anything but unquestioned allies and friends, a growing horror accompanied these changes, even though not a single act of aggression had taken place between any of the realms. The tension at the court amongst those who knew what was going on was palpable and unnerving. Thor knew what to do if attack came. He looked to the steadiness of his father as he strove to understand what he should do when it did _not_ come even as the Svartalf delegation continued their tour of the realms.

Odin had gone to Svartalfheim and been refused an audience. Such a thing was unheard of. "You may seek an audience again once our ambassadors have returned," the royal guards told him. Odin had smiled politely and returned home in a barely contained rage. He had fared marginally better in Alfheim, though he'd learned no more than Thor had on Vanaheim, being told in terse words that Loki's actions had aggrieved the Nine Realms and called into question the honor of Asgard, and that Loki must therefore answer for his crimes on Jotunheim.

He had then planned to make his own journey to Vanaheim, but Frigga had suggested they instead invite Gullveig to Asgard. The agreed upon time of his arrival had now come and gone. Thor glanced more and more frequently toward his father, amazed at the man's patience. The colonnade stretching out into the distance and upward toward the heavens was empty, and father and son stood alone. Based on his own unsettling experience on Vanaheim, Thor had suggested they forego even a minimal presence of guards, and Odin agreed, ordering the colonnade closed and the route between it and the palace kept clear. Thor was without Mjolnir, but his father retained Gungnir.

An Einherjar guard approached, standing out on the otherwise silent and vacant street.

"All-Father," he said with a bow. "Heimdall wished me to inform you that the delegation has left Helheim and returned to Vanaheim."

Odin narrowed his eyes. "Thank him and go quickly."

The guard made a quick bow and sprinted away.

"Vanaheim," Thor repeated.

"Not Midgard."

Thor had been prepared to go to Midgard himself as soon as the delegation left Helheim, because it was the only other realm they had not yet gone to, and was assumed to be the final destination. It was assumed that the dark elves would go there demanding Loki, when the Midgardians did not even know of his presence among them. It would fall to Thor to deal with the repercussions of that uncomfortable revelation, and to convince Earth, presumably through SHIELD and his fellow "Avengers," not to take action against Loki. No one knew if the dark elves knew Loki's location on Midgard; if they did, then it would also fall to Thor to prevent them from absconding with his brother, which could prove difficult since Thor himself did not know Loki's location.

But they had returned to Vanaheim without visiting the two realms that mattered most: Midgard, where they knew Loki to be, and Asgard, which claimed jurisdiction over him. To avoid these two and visit Helheim, where only the dead roamed the land, was baffling, and neither Odin nor Thor spoke a word about it, continuing to wait in silence.

Another half hour passed before the sculpted stone archway glowed unnaturally and King Gullveig stepped through, followed by a broad-chested man in the blue and gold of Vanaheim's royal guard.

"Welcome to Asgard, Gullveig," Odin said, extending his right arm.

Gullveig grasped the arm in his. "Thank you for the invitation, Odin." He released Odin's arm and gave a brief nod toward Thor.

"It's good to see you again, Your Majesty."

"And you, Thor. This is my chief of security, Halladur Tofison."

Odin ignored Halladur. "You've never felt the need for security to accompany you here before."

Gullveig gave a thin smile. "You've never felt the need to clear your streets for me before."

"I didn't want any distractions. Much as I wish it were otherwise, you haven't come here on a social call."

"Indeed I have not."

Odin suggested they go to his official study, the comfortably appointed office off of the throne room. It would take them through that massive gleaming golden chamber, reminding Gullveig of Odin's status, but ultimately place them in a far more intimate and relaxing setting.

Gullveig agreed and they set off, Thor following behind his father's gold-armored form, deep red cape billowing slightly in the breeze, while Halladur followed behind Gullveig in his gold-embroidered white robes, now draped in a rich brown cloak. Thor stole glances at Halladur out of the corner of his eye, but the other man's head was fixed forward, his face hard as chiseled stone. His sword was sheathed on his back, but even without Mjolnir Thor was confident he could take him, if it came to that. Which it would not, he reminded himself.

Along the way, Odin asked after Gullveig's wife, grown children, and young granddaughter, and Gullveig asked after Frigga. Loki was not mentioned.

Guards outside the throne room and one in the doorway of the study came to attention, saluted, and were dismissed. Odin's gaze lingered on Halladur when the four entered the office.

"If you do not object, I prefer to keep him with me, as an additional witness. Nothing more."

"I do not object," Odin said after a moment's hesitation to let his counterpart know that even though he permitted the arrangement, he was not pleased with it.

Odin swept Gungnir past the fireplace, bringing a small fire to crackling life. He walked to the other side of a rectangular table of dark reddish-brown wood with one short end pushed against the wall and rested the staff against the wall as well before settling into a brown leather chair. Gullveig sat down in an identical chair across from Odin, and Thor took the chair at the table's end, though he would have rather remained standing.

"Let us come right to the point, shall we?" Gullveig asked.

"By all means," Odin answered, his face stern but neutral.

"Thor has confirmed what I already knew to be true. What all the realms now know to be true. Your middle son attempted to utterly destroy one of the Nine."

Thor swung his head immediately toward his father. No one had referred to Loki as a middle son in many centuries. Odin blinked his eye, but Thor could detect no other reaction.

"Do you deny it?" Gullveig continued.

"I do not, though it is true I did not want this known. Loki was not in his right mind at the time. He was reacting, not acting with forethought, and certainly without any approval, explicit or implicit."

Thor took care to hide his own reaction this time. As far as he had been able to piece events together, Loki had in fact put a good deal of thought into his schemes. He had lashed out with rage that seemed irrational while they were in the bifrost observatory, but he had staged an assassination attempt, set himself up as savior, and apparently intended to blow Jotunheim apart as his final step all along. They had discussed this, he and his parents, in trying to determine the facts of what had happened. The All-Father was lying.

"Be that as it may, it is no excuse. You know we supported you in your war against Jotunheim. And before you took their Casket, we had our own troubles with them, when they would turn up out of nowhere and freeze our crops. The Frost Giants have few friends among the realms. But that is irrelevant. Had Thor not stopped Loki, Jotunheim would be no more than floating bits of rubble and ice and not one Jotun would be left alive in the universe. We can look past Thor's misguided adventuring across the realms just as we can look past Loki's on Midgard. We cannot look past genocide."

"You speak of things which did not happen. Loki _was_ stopped…"

Odin continued, but Thor found himself unable to keep up with the words. He was taken aback by Gullveig's casual comparison of his own "adventuring" with Loki's attempt to conquer Midgard. He had done foolish things in his youth…and well beyond it…but he had never attempted to rule another realm. He hadn't recklessly killed- But he had. He had done that. But Loki was usually with him. With him…but usually trying to get him to walk away. No. No, it was not the same. Thor swallowed, tried to force aside the anger he knew he now wore on his face.

"How fares Jotunheim now? Heimdall tells us things are calming."

"How should I know? We have no Heimdall spying for us. We have only a brief report from the Svartalfs. They said that Helblindi's faction appears to be gaining ground."

"Gullveig, where does this hostility come from? You've never expressed resentment of Heimdall's role as guardian. What role does Svartalfheim play in all this?"

"Svartalfheim plays only the role of messenger, because their masters of dark magic can forge gateways to the other realms. The rest of us are more limited. We have neither bifrost nor tesseract. And we do not resent Heimdall's role, we decry it."

Thor sat up, unable to remain silent any longer. "Were it not for Heimdall, we would not have known to go to your aid when Muspelheim sent—"

"That was 300 years ago, Thor, but yes, Vanaheim remains grateful that Asgard deigned to come to our rescue. That was when we all trusted that Odin would respect his treaties."

"My father was not responsible—"

"No, he wasn't. And if he can't be responsible for his own sons, then what _can_ he be responsible for?"

"The Frost Giants first broke that treaty themselves, though both sides escalated the conflict," Odin conceded as Gullveig started to interrupt again. "Mistakes can happen in any realm, Gullveig. You are a wise king yourself, you know this to be true. A terrible mistake happened here. One that ultimately rests at my throne, as must they all. But the mistake has been dealt with. And I have attempted to rectify it. If you know as much as you seem to, then you know I went to Jotunheim myself, prepared to offer restitution and assistance repairing the damage to their land. I spoke with the leaders of all three factions, and none were interested. I gave them the option to call out to Heimdall at any point should they change their minds, and they have not called."

"Perhaps because they have been too preoccupied with fighting a civil war. It comes to this, Odin. Vanaheim is no longer satisfied to rely on Asgard for its safety or its very existence. That time has passed. Vanaheim and the other realms call on you to deliver Loki to Jotunheim to face justice. The Jotuns additionally demand the return of their Ice Casket, and we support this demand. If you do not agree, we will be forced to take matters into our own united hands."

Odin sat up stiffly, finally giving up the feigned relaxed posture, while Thor listened in shocked attention to what sounded like the end of a treaty that had been in place his entire life. "You are prepared to throw away well over a thousand years of peace and harmony over one rash action of my child?"

Gullveig snorted and leaned forward, resting his forearms over the narrow table between him and Odin. "He is hardly a child. I was at his coming-of-age ceremony and it was so long ago I can barely remember it. And he was Asgard's king when he undertook this 'one rash action.' But I haven't finished. You've recently added to your treasure store an item of such immense power that all the realms have taken notice. Even little Midgard knows its worth. You have gone too far, Odin. You have concentrated too much power in one set of hands. Seven realms are agreed. You will surrender Loki to Jotunheim. You will surrender the Ice Casket to Jotunheim. And you will surrender the tesseract to Vanaheim."

/

* * *

/

Jane sat up in bed and rubbed around her eyes. She glanced over at her alarm clock. 5:36. Her alarm wouldn't even go off for another nine minutes. She groaned and was about to flop back down on her pillow when a knock came at the door. The sound startled her and woke her up sufficiently to realize that knocking was what had woken her in the first place.

She swung her legs over the bed and slid down, landing with the ease of familiarity on her two-step stool. She shoved her feet into her slippers, wrapped the blue terrycloth robe over her green-and-yellow checkered flannel pajamas, and padded the few steps over to the door.

"Good morning," Lucas said, holding out a coffee mug toward her. "Did I wake you?"

"Um, yeah, but that's okay, my alarm was about to go off anyway. So, uh, what's up?" She tucked her hair behind her ears, suddenly self-conscious that she hadn't brushed it, or her teeth. Lucas was wide awake and perfectly groomed in his dockers and the green henley he wore so often and his black hair combed back perfectly in place, as though he'd been up for hours.

He pushed the steaming mug closer toward her and she accepted it with slightly squinted eyes that would still rather be closed.

"May I come in? I need to discuss something with you."

_I hate morning people_, Jane thought even as she gave a reluctant nod. She stepped back from the door to allow him in, then pulled out the beat-up but comfortable chair she'd salvaged a couple of weeks ago and loosely slip-covered with her original gold flat sheet. She sank into it, careful of the coffee, while Lucas took the chair at her desk. A glance inside the mug told her this was likely a double shot of espresso, and a quick sip confirmed it. A double espresso with one sugar packet – her caffeinated beverage of choice. She was surprised he'd noticed. _I take it back._

"Okay, what was so important you couldn't—Oh, wait. Oh, no. Do I want to know?" _Not more nonsense with SHIELD, please God._

"Nothing bad, I promise. Just an idea. Something I think you'll find interesting."

"I'm not so great with ideas before six, but sure, shoot."

He seemed a bit confused for a moment, but then got comfortable, crossing one leg over the other in that way that he always made seem so elegant and proper, and clasping both hands over the leg on top. Jane pursed her lips and wrapped her worn blue robe more tightly around her. "One of the wormhole theories states that there could be pre-existing, ancient wormholes that are held open by some form of exotic matter, perhaps with negative mass. Correct?"

"_Ancient_ seems a weird way to put it, but yeah. Correct."

He pressed his lips together into a tight frown and actually looked annoyed. Jane squeezed her eyes closed for a moment and took another sip of her coffee while he got over his latest micro-mood-swing. "I think we're looking at evidence that proves that theory."

"How so?" One of her goals was to define the properties of dark matter, a form of exotic matter, but they'd barely even discussed this.

He leaned forward slightly. "We've seen _something_ happening shortly before each impact event. Muon creation, neutrino collision, magnetic and gravitational changes, heat build-up—"

"Heat build-up?" They didn't have any readings on that.

Lucas froze with his mouth half-open, but only for half a second. "There must be heat build-up, given all of the particle interactions."

She nodded. "Go on."

"What if…what if this bifrost, this bridge, only needs to connect to a pre-existing wormhole mouth? And direct the energy to a relatively nearby location from the pre-existing mouth at the other end? It would explain all the data we've observed in a very specific time frame – precisely the amount of time required for the local bridge to extend down, or up, relatively speaking, to the larger, pre-existing bridge."

"Like…like a dirt road connecting to a highway," Jane said thoughtfully.

"Two short dirt roads connecting to a highway in the middle, yes. We don't have to construct the highway, or even fully account for it. All we need to do is construct the initial…dirt road, the local bridge, take advantage of the pre-existing bridge, and then properly direct the energy along a short second dirt road."

"Wait, wait, wait," Jane said, holding out a hand and waving it at him almost like a traffic cop. "You said you had an _idea_. You're jumping about a thousand steps ahead now. We don't need to 'account for' a pre-existing bridge? That's like saying you want to send a man to the moon but you don't have to account for gravity. Everything has to be accounted for in something like this. Why are you so quick to jump to construction? You can't construct something when you don't understand it yet. We're still on the understanding stage. You have an interesting theory, and we'll have to—"

"It's more than an _interesting_ theory. It's the only theory that accounts for the facts. Why are _you_ so quick to dismiss it? We've already agreed to do this, so you can't back—"

"Calm down, Lucas. What's gotten into you?" Jane asked, sitting up straighter and furrowing her brow as she peered at him more closely. "I'm not dismissing anything. I'm just trying to keep things realistic. Research comes before development, you…are you okay? What happened to your hands?"

He quickly clasped them back over his lap. He'd held them out in gesture before, and a slight tremble in them had caught her eye. Upon closer examination, she'd seen the skin there was pinker than usual and kind of shiny.

"Nothing," he said, his voice and body language back to their composed norm. "I just scrubbed them a bit too hard this morning. I wasn't paying attention."

"Middle-of-the-night idea?" Jane asked with a small smile, relaxing back into her chair.

"Well…yes."

"And lots of coffee to fuel it?"

He looked at her with confusion, then glanced down at his shirt as though he expected to find a giant coffee stain on it.

"Shaky hand syndrome," she said, pointing to the hands which were now still.

"Ah. Yes."

"How much?" She wondered if he'd managed to top her limit.

"Considerably more than that," he responded humorlessly, pointing to the mug she was just bringing away from her lips.

Jane nodded and smiled sympathetically. She was no stranger to coffee as a sleep substitute, but had tried to be more reasonable about it since the last time she'd gone a little off the deep end. The first few days after Thor left she'd hardly slept at all, until Darcy and Erik ganged up on her, cut off her coffee supply, and got her to bed. She'd slept for twelve hours.

Lucas faded away and Jane could almost feel the stiff New Mexico breeze tousling her hair and the chill growing as the sun set over the desert. She'd stood there watching _something_ visible through the clear skies develop, linger for a long while, and eventually dissipate. She knew its cause now – Thor had destroyed the bridge, or, perhaps more accurately, whatever thing that controlled the bridge. Could that _something_ have been the mouth of a pre-existing wormhole? With nothing traversing it, and nothing directing the energy ejected from it? Her eyes narrowed as she thought back along a different line.

"They have that data."

"Who has what data?"

Jane blinked and her room at the South Pole, with Lucas sitting in it and looking expectantly at her, came back into focus. "SHIELD has data on another bridge event. A fifth one. But I guess…kind of a failed one."

"A _failed_ one? You saw that on- You saw that in the same location?"

"Yes. Well, close, anyway. Hard to say for sure. There was no impact. But…if that's what we're looking at here, then it could've been unfocused energy from a wormhole that terminated somewhere close to Earth. It would have to be a massive amount of energy for it to be visible here, probably interacting with the magnetosphere."

Jane paused to get Lucas's reaction, but he was so lost in his own thoughts she wasn't even sure he was listening anymore. She smiled and gave a soft laugh. Lucas wasn't easy to get a handle on – she'd spent far less time with people she'd gotten to know far better – but the look on his face was like looking in a mirror. _Still here, Jane!_ she could hear Darcy complaining as she snapped her fingers in front of Jane's face. And sometimes the thought had been in such preliminary stages that at that snap it had disappeared like tendrils of smoke, equally impossible to grab hold of. She left him to his thoughts, then, and let herself slip back into her own.

It _was_ an interesting theory. It accounted – if not for _all_ the data as Lucas had proclaimed rather recklessly – certainly for the correlation she'd noticed in the data. If an Einstein-Rosen Bridge existed out there, held open by _something_ – Lucas didn't seem to think it mattered what – then Asgard's bifrost simply connected to it, and something in that connection caused a series of reactions, such as neutrino collisions. With so many neutrino collisions…could that indicate that the neutrinos were in fact interacting with dark matter, holding the bridge open? Close to Earth? Could the goal really be so close?

"We don't have to get to Asgard," she said, and Lucas's eyes snapped back to hers. "I mean, we do, eventually. But the first step…_if_ your theory is correct, the first step is to figure out how to generate something that will connect to the highway. Okay, not literally the first step, you're a bad influence on me," she said with a smirk. He didn't react, so she continued. "We don't have to get as far as Asgard. Not at first. We just have to figure out how to get to a specific place in space, not far from Earth. And we should be able to identify that location. We've been looking at this data in terms of time, but now we need to look at space. If we layer the data over both time _and_ space, we may be able to…" Jane trailed off, then abruptly stood, empty coffee cup in hand. "We need to get out to the DSL."

Lucas nodded, then reached out and took back the mug. He headed to the door and Jane followed. He paused, hand on the doorknob. "Jane…"

"What?"

"You might want to change your clothes first."

Jane stared at him for just a second before glancing down and being reminded she was still in her pajamas. She shooed Lucas out the door and promised to be ready in ten minutes.

/

* * *

/

"Why do you seek this, Gullveig? Yours is a realm of tillers of abundant fertile land. Ours is a realm of warriors. We can protect the tesseract. You know what happened when others possessed it who could not."

"Yes. Your second son happened."

"You have never sought power of this sort," Odin said, ignoring the comment about Loki.

"And I do not seek it now. I seek – we all seek – a counterweight to the power of Asgard."

"Asgard's power is fated, and it has been earned and proven time and again. It is no danger to any of the realms. Loki is unable to do further harm."

Thor listened to the verbal battle in disbelief that refused to shift into belief no matter how long this went on. No one – save the Frost Giants, who hardly counted – had _ever_ questioned Asgard's supremacy as protector of the Nine Realms, not in his lifetime. The one time he could recall someone coming close, on Svartalfheim, Thor had made certain he never had the chance to do so again.

"Loki is for Jotunheim to deal with. But we disagree that there is no danger. And precisely _because_ I have never sought such power, the realms are agreed that the tesseract should reside in Vanaheim. We will overlay it with the protection of both warriors and magic, much as you have done here, but we will interweave magic from throughout the realms, a strong and united shield against any who dare defy us. It will be safe with us."

"And who would you have me deliver my son to?"

Thor tensed and jerked forward at that, but he felt something nudge his right foot, and realized it was his father, signaling him to hold his tongue.

"Byleister, Helblindi, Dirnolek, it matters not. All three have insisted on the same thing. I'm not here to dictate any more to you than the three things I already have."

"You are correct, Gullveig. It matters not. The crime to which you refer was committed on Asgard. It was discussed among Asgard's royal council. And punishment was decided by Asgard's king. No other realm has any right to intervene. No other realm may dictate our actions, nor do we claim any right to dictate yours. This is foolishness, Gullveig, and it is beneath you."

"You continue to speak as though you only hear my voice. I assure you, when _I_ speak you are hearing the voice of seven realms. The dark elves neglected only Midgard in their journeys, for they are too ignorant of us to offer an opinion. If you don't believe me, ask the others. They'll speak to you now. But you'll hear no different. We make three simple, reasonable demands, Odin. If you refuse, we will join together and take what we demand, and upon your defeat we will divide up all the treasures in your weapons vault among us so that _your_ safety and continued existence depend upon us, and not the other way around. You have two weeks."

"Until…?"

"Until we consider you to have refused."

Odin stood, and Gullveig drew back from the table, startled at the sudden movement. "Turn back, Gullveig. I do not respond well to threats. If you pursue this course against your closest ally, you will be making the greatest mistake of your long and benevolent rule. And when this mistake lands at your throne, it will crush you."

/

* * *

/

"Father."

Odin drew to a halt and turned to Thor. They had escorted Gullveig back to the portal at the end of the colonnade – this time with a full complement of honor guards who were meant less to show honor to Vanaheim's king than to display Asgard's might – and were now approaching the palace. The honor guard also came to a halt at a respectful distance behind them, and the guards at the palace's towering golden doors also remained out of earshot.

"Did you hear the same thing I did?" They had walked back in silence, Thor still struggling to process Gullveig's accusations and demands and threats.

"What did you hear, Son?"

"I heard…" It was difficult even to say it out loud. "I heard King Gullveig of Vanaheim threaten attack and plunder by seven of the Nine Realms if we fail to give Loki and the Ice Casket to Jotunheim and the tesseract to Vanaheim." Difficult…but helpful. As soon as the words fell out of Thor's own mouth they became real.

"Then yes, I heard the same thing," Odin said, smiling faintly.

"It is…unthinkable."

"There is yet time to dissuade them."

Thor nodded confidently. He knew this would not come to pass, that it _could _not. The All-Father would make all the other realms see the imprudence of their attempts to dominate and sideline the Realm Eternal and ally against it. "How do you always know the right thing to say, Father?"

"Did you think I knew the right thing to say to Gullveig?"

"Yes," he answered after a brief hesitation, and that only from surprise. "You kept control over the situation. You refused to give ground on any of his outrageous demands, and you made eloquent arguments against every point he tried to make."

"And yet he left here with every bit of vanity, every misguided intention he came here with," Odin said, his face impassive, his bearing as solid as ever.

"Father…"

"You need to hear this, Thor. You need to begin preparing yourself if I am unsuccessful. Asgard's place among the realms has not been seriously in question since the early years of my reign. That place was secured once again by craftiness and through costly wars. Wars against factions, or single realms. Never against seven united realms."

Thor listened with unease so strong he felt it physically, a twisting in his gut. In some strange way he could not quite identify, his father suddenly seemed _less_. He longed for the fabled warrior, the wizened ruler, the patient diplomat, even the wrathful father who banished him, instead of this man before him, confessing uncertainty and fallibility. "But you just said there was time to-"

"Yes. There is time. Theirs is an irrational, foolhardy decision. I will be up all night considering the right thing to say to the leaders of seven realms to make them see their miscalculation."

Thor nodded, considering his father's words. "With your advisors?" he asked a moment later.

"No. I'll gather them, then ask them to each consider the situation themselves before we meet again tomorrow. I want to hear each idea presented before the stronger voices have a chance to drown out the weaker. I will retire and discuss this with Frigga."

He nodded again, with greater assurance this time. He had watched those weaker voices being drowned out in his own meetings with his father's advisors. _This_ was the wizened ruler speaking again. "May I join you, Father?"

Odin rested a hand against Thor's shoulder. "You may."

* * *

/

_To everyone who celebrated Thanksgiving Day yesterday...Happy Thanksgiving! Hope you had a wonderful day with family and friends and much to be thankful for._

_Teasers for Chapter 23 (haven't yet had the time to title it!): Loki and Jane really start to get on each other's nerves; that one piece of equipment Loki noticed Jane didn't say much about might come in handy; Loki decides to tell Jane more about himself...in his own way; Thor might have another realm to visit._

_And excerpt:_

She was full of longing for something more than what she had, more than what she was, and Loki had the sudden foolish urge to give it to her, even though it would result in precisely the thing he'd just been trying to avoid – her learning who he really was. Thor must have spoken of magic to her, but Loki could _show_ it to her. Let her decide for herself if it was science or something more. Assure her that science alone – _her_ science alone – wouldn't have to be enough.

_Your reviews as always are appreciated and mean a great deal to me._

_And in response to 11/17 Guest, to your last question, will Jane ever figure out what Loki's been up to with her computer...she definitely will...but she'll figure some other things out first..._


	24. (23) Tension

_This chapter follows pretty much directly from "Chapter 22: Allies," which in turn follows pretty directly from "Chapter 21: Breakthrough," and the next chapter follows directly from this one. (You'll see why it must). Busy day on Asgard and Midgard. We're approaching sunset (March 22), Gullveig's and seven realms' deadline, and the next big breakthrough...hopefully for Loki related to wormhole travel and not his dreams._

_Thanks as always for your reviews and comments and ideas, they are sincerely appreciated._

_I'm supposed to be leaving shortly for a long-awaited dive vacation...unfortunately Cat 5 Typhoon Bopha apparently had the same plans. So we'll see...not sure yet if I have to cancel last minute, not sure what the impact will be on the writing schedule. But I do usually find writing while traveling particularly inspiring. It's always possible however that if I go there won't be internet...if you don't hear from me for a couple of weeks never fear, I promise I'm still writing!_

/

* * *

**Beneath**

Chapter Twenty-Three – Tension

"I'll have to be careful about it."

"But you can get it."

"Yes, I just don't want to raise any red flags. They're going to want to know why I want that data."

"I'm sure you can manage," Lucas said, a definite thread of sarcasm in his voice.

Jane frowned at him. She hated when he got like that, even if she could never quite put her finger on what exactly _that_ was. She just knew she hated it and it set her on edge. And it was getting harder to ignore. Jane liked to think of herself as friendly and easy-going, but she was no doormat.

"So am I," she said. "I'll ask Tony Stark."

"Stark? Are you sure?"

"Look, do you want me to get the data or not? Tony has the ability to make that happen and to make it happen fast. I could go lower, but lower means someone having to ask permission. I could ask Erik…but I don't want to involve him in this, not even peripherally. I'll just…tell him I realized I wanted to be able to look at the data from the failed event, too. It's not even a lie. He won't bat an eyelash. I don't know if he actually has that data himself, but if he doesn't, he'll be able to get it. I'll type the message up tonight and send it first thing tomorrow morning."

They were back in the Dark Sector Lab, alone as they had been all day long except for a quick lunch break, and had been going through satellite feeds from the second through fourth events, when discussion circled back to the fifth event.

"All right," he finally said, and Jane heard the galling tone of _permission_.

"I'm glad you approve," she responded crossly, swiveling back around to her computer so she wouldn't have to see his reaction. He wasn't exactly hovering over her, but she could feel his breath over the top of her head when he released a sigh – more like a huff – before returning to his own computer.

/

* * *

/

"Power is going to be a problem," Loki said.

"What?" Jane asked. They remained at their individual desks, Loki running through the obstacles that still lay ahead while waiting for results from yet another data analysis program he'd run.

"Power. Even if we don't have to guide the bridge all the way to…to Asgard," he said, unintentionally stumbling over the word that still felt very strange to speak of here in his role as Lucas, "we still have to create massive amounts of particle reactions and guide them to the mouth of the main bridge. The trunk, if you will." The last he added intentionally. If he could speak of Asgard then he could speak of Yggdrasil, the World Tree, at least in metaphorical terms.

Jane turned to look at him with something akin to exasperation, and he wondered if at this point he was simply expected not to speak. He knew he'd annoyed her earlier, but he hadn't much cared at the time. She was so careful and methodical in her approach. Too slow. Loki had thought he would have all winter to get off this backwater realm and make it to Svartalfheim to get the curses removed. Now that The Other – as that foul creature had introduced himself, though Loki had called him many other names and never that one – had found him, he would prefer to be gone by the time the sun set, about a week from now, and he definitely wanted to be gone before it rose again in September.

"Since you're ready to move on to power, why don't you go build us the device we need, and I'll figure out the power supply, okay?" Jane asked after a moment.

"I was simply pointing out-"

"You were simply skipping half the steps again! We don't need power for a device we don't have and don't know what it even needs to do yet."

"Are you even capable of putting together a sentence that isn't full of 'can't' and 'don't'?" he asked in a low rumble. His fists were clenched tightly over his thighs. He knew this wasn't the right way to deal with Jane, that she would not respond to this in the way he wanted, but his control was less than perfect. He was tired and agitated.

Jane rarely seemed to put much effort into hiding what she was thinking, and this was no exception. She was furious. _Let her be_, Loki thought, knowing his reaction to be irrational and really not caring. He _needed_ her, but right now he would have happily sealed her mouth and tossed her out into the snow.

He was certain she was going to shout something back at him, and he almost welcomed it. He had kept himself so tightly controlled now for so long – his actions, his speech, his mannerisms, his expressions, his magic, everything that made him _him_ – that a release would bring sweet relief.

But it would also ruin everything he'd worked so hard for here and put his plans in jeopardy, so the wiser part of him was relieved when her face calmed. Instead, she stood up and walked to the door. Not a helpful reaction, either. He couldn't afford to alienate her or drive her away.

"You. Up. Come with me," she said.

Loki didn't even try to hide his surprise. He stared hard at her for a moment and let her feel it, but then did as he was told, ceding his will to hers as he had done many times now. He was conscious of it every time he did it, but that part at least had gotten easier, so long as he reminded himself each time – and he did – that he obeyed because he chose to, not because he had to. And he chose to because it furthered his own plans.

"Suit up," she told him once he'd followed her to the building's entrance.

He watched her for a moment further as she started pulling on layers over her jeans and flannel shirt, then followed her lead. They went outside, but instead of setting off toward the station he followed her carefully up the stairs, each of which was covered with a small amount of snowdrift, up to the roof. The sun peeked only partially above the horizon now, to the right of the Ice Cube Lab, an odd metallic blue structure that from here appeared as though it hung suspended over the snow from a long horizontal white pole attached to thicker while vertical columns to its left and right. The station and other buildings lay off to the left, behind him, while before him, beyond the DSL, lay an empty white nothing. _Barren land_, he thought with a shudder he told himself was caused by the cold.

Removing the outer mitt from her right hand, Jane flipped the latches on one of the heavy black boxes pushed to the station side of the roof and pulled out a screwdriver, then crossed to the other side and knelt down beside the device she'd said little about thus far, the one that looked the newest and most technologically sophisticated of everything she'd had sent here. She unhooked from its bottom piece the plywood casing that skirted the device to keep it clear of snowdrift and set it aside on her own; she didn't ask for his help and he didn't offer it. She keyed in a sequence on the control pad on its side to power it down, then gripped the screwdriver in her gloved right hand, and worked through the four screws that held the disk-shaped sensor and metal plate in place over the contraption, about the size of three computer towers side-by-side.

Loki forgot his frustration, forgot the cold, forgot the renewed sense of urgency the familiar voice in his dream had instilled in him, as he watched what Jane was doing with intense curiosity. Once she'd removed and set aside the cover plate and sensor with its trailing cables still connecting it, he could see a faint blue glow from inside the box, reflecting off its metal casing. She stood up and stepped aside; he exchanged a glance with her then stepped forward to peer inside. Resting atop the silver metal and thin black cable of the thing's electronic guts was a round object no wider than his open palm, a series of concentric rings glowing cool blue and broken by dark metal that tamed and channeled its power.

"Do you know what that is?" Jane asked when he looked over at her again, her voice slightly muffled in a now familiar way by the balaclava.

He did. "No," he said, because Lucas didn't.

"Maybe you've heard of Tony Stark's arc reactor technology? This one was…kind of a gift, I guess. After…well, after the New Mexico incident. It's a long story," she said, waving her right hand as though brushing away a fly.

_After your beloved Thor deserted you, the Man of Iron felt sorry for you? How very sweet of him._

"Anyway," she continued, "let's just say power's not going to be a problem."

The South Pole Station had three main generators running on jet fuel, plus a few smaller backups and boilers for individual buildings. Nothing like what was contained in that little blue ring. "I've heard of this," he said with a slow nod. "It can generate more power than all of the South Pole's generators combined. Far more than this one piece of equipment requires." His gaze slid slowly, pointedly, back over to Jane. He had seen the feed from it. It detected particles in an expanded set of wavelengths, but did nothing to require such massive amounts of energy. Not that he had seen, at least.

"Right now it's in passive mode," Jane explained, looking down at her creation. It wasn't as though she'd forgotten what it looked like in the last two minutes; she was avoiding his eyes, Loki recognized. "It _was_ designed to take a more…active approach to getting signals from space."

"You wanted to be able to create your own wormholes all along," he said. There was no need to make it a question. "For all your protests, you already knew you wanted to do this."

She hesitated long enough for Loki to wonder if she was blushing underneath her balaclava. "Not here. Not now. At first I just wanted to be able to find the source of those original wormholes. And then I wanted to find a way to force specific sub-molecular reactions and get really detailed readings on them, so I designed this to be able emit modulated pulses of various forms of energy, and to be able to launch small probes out beyond the magnetosphere. I haven't had a chance to do much with it, though. I had just finished building it when SHIELD whisked me away on some trumped up consulting job. I thought that's why they sent me to Norway, I thought they were excited and wanted me to test this thing out, but when I got there I was told I couldn't even turn it on. Now I think they were just afraid it would get Loki's attention – that man who was trying to take over the planet."

A chill raced up Loki's spine upon hearing his real name on her lips. He wasn't sure if he or his mortal followers would have noticed this machine launching probes into space or not – he'd been rather busy with other things at the time. But he _was _sure he couldn't risk Jane's muddled memories suddenly clearing up. He couldn't let her thoughts linger on him in that way. "But you _did_ think that eventually you would attempt to create a wormhole," he said.

"Eventually, yes," she admitted with a nod. "My attitude has always been that if someone else can do something, then I can, too. So if someone else out there can build something that generates wormholes, then why can't we? Why can't I? The only problem is…one of the people from Asgard told me they use magic. And that magic is the same as science there. I know that seems outlandish, but maybe it just means that their science is so advanced compared to us that it _looks_ like magic because we don't understand it, you know? The way a computer might look to someone from 500 years ago. Or maybe it's something more. I've thought about it a lot, and I just can't be sure. But I can't replicate magic. Only science. And there's only so far I can take science at our current level of technology. If I'd figured out how a computer should work a thousand years ago I still wouldn't be able to build one at that time because I wouldn't have the components or the ability to create them. That's my real concern in all this, that science alone just won't be enough."

Her head tilted upward, off to his left, and he wondered if she were metaphorically looking for Asgard. She was full of longing for something more than what she had, more than what she was, and Loki had the sudden foolish urge to give it to her, even though it would result in precisely the thing he'd just been trying to avoid – her learning who he really was. Thor must have spoken of magic to her, but Loki could _show_ it to her. Let her decide for herself if it was science or something more. Assure her that science alone – _her_ science alone – wouldn't have to be enough. That if she could just get close enough, and he knew what remained to be done, he could cause the rest to happen.

And as his desire to give her what she wanted for something resembling selfless reasons began to more closely reflect considerably more selfish motivations, he completely rejected the absurd notion of revealing himself to her. He had worked too hard to get this situation under his control, to get _Jane_ under his control, to throw it away and start over just to see her reaction when he cast multiple duplicates of Lucas and transformed all of their ECW gear into helmets and armor and leather. If she discovered who he was he would have to use altogether different tactics than those he was using now. And if he found the idea of her screaming in terror somewhat amusing…the thought of actually harming her he did not. She could ponder his magic after he left; perhaps he could leave her a parting gift of some sort. Something full of the most delectable mischief since the Dark Elves would soon after be curing him of his afflictions.

"I'm confident we can make it work," he finally said.

"What? Oh, right. Yeah…yeah. Hey, let's go on in for dinner. We need to take a break from this, huh?"

"All right," he agreed. Not because he actually needed or even wanted to take a break, but because he was thinking more clearly now in the dry frigid air and recognized that he had allowed the atmosphere in the DSL to grow too tense. He needed to repair whatever damage may have been done.

"We're quite close, then, aren't we?" Loki asked once they were down the stairs and on their way back to the station.

"Launching probes and launching people isn't exactly the same thing, you know. And I haven't even been able to test the launching-probes part yet. We have to map out exactly where the mouth of the pre-existing bridge is" – he noticed she seemed to have already accepted that he was correct that there _was_ one – "and figure out how to connect a smaller bridge to it, and eventually how to direct the energy beyond the main bridge, and then there's the tiny detail about how to make it all safe for human travel. Oh, and how to ensure it's not a one-way trip. So, yeah, just a few little things left to work out. It'll be up and running tomorrow. Day after at the latest."

Loki pictured himself smoothing the ice in front of her into the texture of glass so that her feet flew out from under her and she fell flat on her face, or perhaps her rear. He had done it to Thor once – well, more than once – when he'd been similarly aggravated. But while Thor had fallen with a delightfully heavy thud and come back up swinging and huffing like a bull – after an amusingly long time trying to gain purchase on the ice, Loki remembered – Jane, although much lighter, was more susceptible to injury…which would mean running afoul of both curses at the same time again. He tried to content himself with the image, and with the knowledge that at least one of her "little things," the part about one-way trips, was entirely unnecessary. If he ever came back to this realm again it certainly wouldn't be through that little contraption on the roof of the DSL.

"No more work talk though, deal? Taking a break means taking an actual break," Jane said a couple of minutes later. Meanwhile, Austin was approaching them from the Ice Cube Lab, providing extra incentive not to talk about work.

"How goes it?" he called once their paths merged.

Jane and Loki slowed to allow him to catch up. They exchanged pleasantries.

"We hardly ever see you two anymore. You'll have to tell me more about your work sometime. Either you've run into problems or your research must be really exciting."

Loki let Jane answer and his own mind wander, but within seconds Austin's words were replaying. _We hardly ever see you two anymore_. "We" probably indicated that he and Carlo, at the very least, perhaps with others, had been talking about him and Jane. About how they spent all their time alone together. He looked over at Austin with a bemused smile that Austin wouldn't be able to see behind the balaclava, then at diminutive Jane, who was just catching herself from another stumble over a ridge in the ice. _Ludicrous_. But if Austin and his scientist friends or the entire station wanted to think that he and Jane were in some kind of secret romantic liaison, that was fine with him if it helped ensure they were left alone. Loki imagined such a rumor somehow making its way to Thor, and an image of Thor's head literally exploding from rage popped into his mind.

"What?" Jane asked.

Loki glanced her way, laughter he hadn't even been aware of dying away. "Nothing," he answered, fixing his eyes on the station as they neared it. "Just thinking about something else."

Austin continued on with whatever he'd been saying about the construction of the Ice Cube telescope, and Loki was mildly impressed – Jane had apparently diverted his attention onto his own work, which was a clever move, and one Loki himself frequently made use of. People were always more interested in talking about themselves than about anything else in the universe.

"Wanna join us?" Austin asked once they were inside and rounding the corner to the galley.

Loki watched Jane out of the corner of his eye, and now that her face was uncovered he could read every reaction that played across it. She was tempted – she wasn't antisocial by nature and she missed the company of the others. But she saw who was already sitting at the table Austin was undoubtedly headed for: Selby and Wright. She hated being around Selby because of her sense of betrayal, and that was something Loki understood quite well.

"Thanks, but we can't. Lucas and I still need to discuss some things about the particle data we got back today."

"Oh, sure, right. Well…don't be such a stranger, either of you. Don't even think about missing the sunset party, I think that would actually be illegal. And we're going to play after dinner. It'd be great if you'd join us. In the audience, I mean, unless you want to do a _Heart and Soul_ encore."

"We wouldn't miss it," Loki quickly answered with a warm smile as he took a plate and surveyed the main dish options. They probably _would_ miss it, but agreeing was the quickest way to dismiss Austin and his invitations.

"Ironic excuse, wouldn't you say?" he whispered once their plates were filled and Austin was walking away. "We need to discuss work?"

Jane shot him a rather unkind look. They reached a table and she set her tray down with a little more force than necessary. "I don't like being turned into a liar. I don't like any of this," she said once they were seated.

Loki took a bite of thawed green peas. He hadn't come to like this food, unlike everyone else here who seemed to be quite impressed with it, but he had largely gotten used to it. "Does it help at all to know that you're only lying to those who are lying to you?"

"Not really," she said, stabbing aimlessly at a piece of chicken with her fork. "It's not like I know who's part of this and who's not. I mean, it can't be _everybody_."

Loki watched as her frown deepened; he was certain she was wondering if it somehow _could_ be everybody, if SHIELD's reach and abilities were that comprehensive. He briefly wondered whether he really could drive her right over the edge into insanity, if he worked hard enough at it. That line of thought was pointless though; he needed a mentally sound Jane Foster. He glanced over her shoulder to the table where the other dark sector scientists were sitting. _Them_ he didn't need mentally sound… But that was a distraction he had no time for at the moment.

"Don't concern yourself about it. We have more important things to worry about. We need to plan a test of your special gadget out there. Perhaps we can use it to help-"

"No shop talk. I meant that. Look, it's hard for me to stop thinking about it, too, but I'm starting to go stir crazy. You're worse than me, you know."

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"I can get pretty stubborn…some might say obstinate…when I've grabbed onto a new idea. But you're starting to approach that line between bearably and unbearably irritating, to be perfectly honest."

_Me?_ Loki thought sarcastically. But there was no benefit in arguing. "I shall attempt in the future to remain firmly on the side of bearable," he said, letting the sarcasm seep through.

Jane ignored it and they ate in silence. He supposed he should say something else – repair the damage, as he'd intended, but at the moment the things he wanted to say were things that would only further the damage. With this new device at their disposal, they were even closer than he'd originally believed. Work was all he wanted to talk about. Work was all they had in common…except for Thor, perhaps. And they could hardly talk about him. Lucas didn't know him, and Loki had no desire to see strong-willed scientist Jane turn into some kind of lovesick creature pining for the radiance of his brother. _Former brother! False brother!_ Loki shouted at himself. The longer he was here, the easier it was to slip into old habits. Over a thousand years of thinking of Thor as his brother was not easily overcome by the revelation that he never had been, no matter how many times or how harshly Loki reminded himself. Despite all that had happened, sometimes he felt as though he were still trying to stand from having that rug ripped out from under him, still trying to come to terms with the fact that the family and indeed the entire realm he'd never completely fit into were never his to begin with. He'd tried to claw his way back one way, and when that had failed and a strange combination of opportunity and coercion came his way, he'd tried another route, with another goal entirely. Now he would have to find a third way. Svartalfheim was only a means to an end, certainly not an end itself. He would find something else for himself, perhaps outside the Nine Realms entirely. Far from the place that birthed him and rejected him, far from the place that stole him and rejected him. He neither wanted nor needed either of them, or any of the rest of the Nine, Midgard certainly included. He would be sad for his mother, but he suspected even she would get over his loss in time.

"I get it, you know," Jane said, interrupting his thoughts, most likely for the best. He had been growing far too sentimental.

"Get what?" he asked.

"You. At least I think I do. You've got some big decisions to make, right? Problems in your department, problems with your family…you said you're estranged from them? I think in some ways you're a lot like me. You throw yourself into your work because you love it, but even more so when you've got problems going on. I do the same thing. I like numbers. They're…safe. Even at their most complex, even when negative or irrational or filled with variables, they're extraordinarily simple and straightforward in their own way. Numbers are reliable. Focusing on facts and formulas, even theoretical formulas, it's gotten me through some tough times. But…I've also sometimes let myself go a little too far. I've never been good at taking a balanced approach to life."

"I've never thought of numbers quite like that, but I do appreciate having a goal to work toward. If you have a clear goal, why shouldn't you put all your effort into attaining it?"

"Well, you _should_, but…but balance is still important. Look, I'm not saying I have the answers, I definitely don't. I wish I knew how my mom did it."

"How are you so certain she did?"

"Because I saw it. I saw all the different things she did, the hobbies she had and how she was always trying to learn new things. I think all that really brought her…I don't know, more peace, or fulfillment? It made her happy, anyway. And how she was able to rearrange her priorities when she felt the need. I told you she was an anthropologist, didn't I?"

Loki nodded.

"She loved her work. She would tell me stories about Central American culture and mythology and show me pictures from the digs she went on and she would always get excited when she talked about it. Well, when she was expecting me, she decided to basically give up her career to stay home with me. It had to have been a really hard decision. I heard her talking about it with Mindy once – my friend Erik's late wife? Some of her female colleagues turned on her, as if she was letting down women everywhere for giving up what they'd fought so hard for. But she did what she thought was best for herself and for her family, no matter what anyone else thought. She cooked and sewed and even made some of my clothes herself. I was the only kid I knew whose mom actually sewed. She got into DIY home repairs and I remember how ridiculously joyful she looked scooting out from under our bathroom sink with work gloves on and a wrench in her hand and grease on her arms. We didn't have much money on a single salary so I guess she kind of didn't have a choice in some of that stuff.

"She was a soccer mom before people talked about soccer moms. And I mean literally. Although I was pretty lousy at soccer and eventually switched to softball. And she kept roses, about a dozen different varieties. She tried to get me interested in it, but I thought one flower was pretty much the same as the next and I'd rather be reading about Jupiter's moons. Just one of so many things I wish I'd taken the time to learn from her, if I'd only known there wasn't much time left."

"You admired her greatly."

Jane let out a laugh, which surprised Loki. "Well, yes. More so now as an adult myself. She was just _Mom_ to me then. I didn't appreciate how much she accomplished every single day. I wish I'd had the chance to ask her how she did it.

"My mother never cooked or made any of my clothes, though she did often commission them from the tailors without consulting me. I certainly never saw her crawling out from under a sink – the image is both appalling and amusing, in a wicked sort of way." Jane stifled laughter, and Loki smiled to let her know he wouldn't be offended by the laughter. "My brother and I were already enough for a full-time job for her, but she was kept busy with other duties. Still she always made time for me."

Jane's smile faded. "I don't understand."

"You don't understand what?" Loki asked, his smile growing more brittle. _Am I so irritating that you don't think my own mother would care for me? _He gave a small snort. _Perhaps you're correct_, he thought, as he realized that in fact the mother who had given birth to him had left him to die of starvation and exposure.

"That you're…oh. Oh. I'm so sorry. _You_ were speaking in the past tense. Has she passed away?"

"No," he answered immediately, because that was a truly horrible thought, and not one he wished to dwell on at all.

"Then…I don't understand. I've never heard you…I can tell that you love her a great deal. Why are you estranged?"

Loki lifted one eyebrow for a moment, tensing, then relaxed and leaned back in his chair. _Why not? If you want a story, Jane Foster, you shall have one_, he thought. And it may as well be one that was to his benefit. "I'm not so much estranged from her as I am from the rest of my family. _Because of _the rest of my family. I told you, there's a family business, and I didn't want any part of it. That wasn't acceptable to them. To my father and brother. And my sister," he threw in for good measure, lest this tale ring too familiar from some version of it Thor may have fed her. Otherwise he would stick to truth, since there was no lie more effective than a massaged truth.

"That's not reason enough to turn your back on your family."

"I didn't turn my back on them. They turned their back on me."

"Even your mother?"

"No. But they are…a package deal, you might say. My father is a hard man. He has strict expectations of his children, and I never lived up to them. I was never what he wanted me to be."

"But you're…you're getting a doctorate in astrophysics."

"Which is all well and good for a hobby, but which contributes nothing to the family business."

"Have you tried talking to him? Really talking to him?"

"He isn't very good at listening. He prefers lecturing."

"But still, you can't just give up. It's your _family_. I mean…" Jane trailed off and her expression changed from one of sickeningly sweet earnestness to something more like wariness. "What line of business is your family in? I looked you up online, and I couldn't find anything."

"Of course you couldn't," he said, not reacting in the slightest to the shift in topic, although he hadn't expected this to come up now. No matter, he was prepared for it anyway.

"Why not?"

"Because Lucas Cane isn't my real name."

/

* * *

/

"Why did you have him made king?" Odin suddenly asked in a sharp tone, his voice raised if not quite shouting.

Reclining against an ornately carved heavy desk in his parents' private library, part of their expansive chambers, Thor, who had fallen deeply into his own thoughts, suddenly straightened. His father had been recounting the meeting with Gullveig, and Thor had been present and had already heard it retold once, before the advisors.

"What else was I to do? No one knew when you would awaken, or _if_ you would awaken. And with a state of war renewed with Jotunheim, I-"

"Loki was the one who broke that truce, Frigga! What were you thinking?"

Odin had shed his armor, but the tautness of his body and the power in his clenched fists made him a frightful sight regardless. Thor couldn't recall ever seeing him this angry with his mother. If his parents ever fought, they had never done so in front of him. His gaze shifted to his mother; she was trembling, but he could tell it wasn't from fear or anything of the sort. She was the gentlest of creatures, but even the gentlest of creatures could turn frightful herself where her children were involved.

Thor took a tentative step forward. "It wasn't Loki's fault, Fath-"

"Who let the Frost Giants into Asgard in the first place?" Odin asked, rounding on Thor. "We know now it was Loki. And who was the one who goaded you into going to Jotunheim?"

"But _I_ was the one who-"

"_Thor_, enough! You aren't a child anymore, and neither is Loki. Would you have ever been on Jotunheim in the first place, in violation of a standing order, were it not for your brother?"

"I…" Thor paused, licked his lips. No one had forced him to do anything, and Loki had tried to get him to leave Jotunheim without starting a fight. The blame for that particular mistake was shared. He knew this. His father knew it, too – after all, _he_ was the one that had been banished. But he wasn't going to win this argument. "No."

"You asked what I was thinking," Frigga interjected. She stood calmly now in the center of the room, her back to shelves of leather-bound tomes, addressing her husband. "I was thinking that Asgard needed a king. I was thinking that our crown prince had been cast out by his father. I was thinking we had another prince. A son who was hurt, who doubted his family's love, and who had always suffered from self-doubt. I was thinking he could prove himself. That he could show all of Asgard that he was capable of it. I thought he could show _himself_ that he was capable of it."

"So you put our hurting, doubting, suffering son on the throne? He was angry, Frigga, he was enraged and full of malice. He was in no condition to take on such responsibility! He proved himself by deceiving and manipulating and murdering Laufey inside the most protected-"

"Stop!" Thor shouted, his voice thundering through the sparsely furnished room. Odin and Frigga turned and stared at him, and he suddenly felt like a child sticking fingers in his ears rather than an adult trying to mediate between two other adults. "None of this matters now. What's done is done." He spoke with the voice of reason, as well as the desire not to be subjected to any more of this aspect of his parents' relationship that he'd never known existed. And maybe it never had until now. _And _that_ is Loki's fault_, he thought spitefully, then squeezed his eyes shut for a moment to try to take back the unfair accusation.

Her face gone hard and brittle, Frigga turned her back to them and took the few steps over to the books, which she absently traced a finger over.

"You're right," Odin conceded with a deep exhale, calming himself. "We can't change the past. We can only deal with the present, and try to plan for the future. Frigga…you couldn't have known how angry he was. I was the only one who saw it. I hadn't seen him display such raw emotion since…since a long time ago. I'm sure he had composed himself by the time you saw him. And you had no idea what he'd done.

"As for the present…" He paused and ran a hand over down his face. "Many questions remain unanswered. This madness originates with Svartalfheim, not Jotunheim. If the Jotuns had initiated these demands, Gullveig would not have spoken with indifference about which faction we are to give Loki to. The Jotuns are pawns in this game. As for Svartalfheim…they can be a vexing lot, but since when do they seek to overthrow the entire order of the Nine Realms?"

"There is no logic in any of this," Frigga said, appearing to be engrossed in the books but obviously still listening. "Gullveig has always had a streak of vanity. But why would the other realms see Vanaheim as the best protector of the tesseract? If Svartalfheim wanted to ensure the breaking of the Vanir-Aesir alliance, perhaps it was the only carrot valuable enough to dangle in front of Gullveig to get him to bite."

"But what would Svartalfheim gain from such a bargain? We've co-existed with them peacefully for centuries," Thor said.

"Uneasily at times, but yes, peacefully. It's a good question. We'll discuss plans tomorrow morning, but I already know I'll be returning to Svartalfheim. And Thor, even if the Dark Elves ignore Midgard, we cannot. You will still need to return there and meet with their warriors."

Thor nodded grimly. He dreaded this duty, but had no doubts about its necessity. Gone were the days when the other realms could pretend Midgard and its mortals did not exist when it came to matters affecting the Nine Realms. Especially when his brother was there, in hiding and likely ignorant of the rising threat against him.

* * *

/

_Want to join Loki and Jane on the rooftop of the DSL? You can! Google [google maps "south pole telescope"], it's the first hit. Very cool! You'll almost think you're there._

_Teasers for next chapter: Loki/not-Lucas(?) and Jane continue that conversation that ended rather uncomfortably above; Loki does some hard thinking; Odin tells Thor what he expects him to find out on Midgard, and Thor is reticent to do so._

_And the excerpt:_

Jane thought back to the one thing she'd seen him get emotional about until now – work. To how eager he was to see their project brought to fruition. Jane was eager, too, but she felt like she was dragging her feet compared to him, and sometimes he seemed to feel that way, too. His eagerness at times seemed to border on desperation. As though he _needed_ this more than she did in some way. "You're doing this to prove yourself to your family," she blurted out without explanation.


	25. (24) Scars

_Sorry for the delay, dear readers! I was enjoying one fabulous - and very active - vacation. Typhoon Bopha missed the part of Palau I was in, but other parts fared worse; according to what I've heard there are villages that no longer exist but no known loss of life. It then went on to the Philippines where hundreds were killed.**  
**_

_But this is not what you came here to read, especially when I left you with a bit of a cliffhanger last time. You hopefully won't have long at all to wait for the next update; "Chapter 25: Discretion" was completed days ago in Palau, and I'm already on page 5 (of average 11) of "Chapter 26: Sunset." (12/15)_

* * *

**Beneath**

Chapter Twenty-Four – Scars

Jane grabbed her tray and stood up. She turned her back on him without a word and headed around the corner to drop off the tray. Part of her was just as furious at herself for walking away as she was with Lucas for whatever ploy he was engaging in. Lucas was all she had here now, and she needed him, not just professionally, but personally. He was the only person who kept her from being entirely isolated. Still, she was at a breaking point, and was more than ready to jump off this roller coaster of not knowing who to trust.

"Jane," Lucas said from close behind her, then reached a hand out for her shoulder when he caught up to her, but she wrenched her arm away.

"Don't touch me."

She watched as anger flared on his face then just as quickly disappeared. "Jane-"

"No. You know what, Lucas? Or whatever your name is or isn't. You told me you don't like playing games, and I think I already told you I didn't believe you. All you _do_ is play games. And I've had enough. I'm going back to my room now. I'll see you tomorrow morning at breakfast or if not then, then out at the DSL, and we can get back to work. But I'm done with the games. Do you hear me? I'm _done._"

"Allow me to explain," he said, more a demand than a plea.

"Fine, explain."

"Not here," he said. They were still in the corridor right outside the galley. Two men – an electrician and a materials specialist she'd once had breakfast with - were filing out of the galley, their own conversation dying off as they observed the drama in front of them.

"Fine," Jane said once the men had passed by. "We can go to the Science Lab. Nobody'll be there at this time. But I swear, Lucas, if you…" She trailed off, shaking her head. She really had no more words for him at this point.

They got to the Science Lab but Su-Ji was working there, and there was a meeting in the nearby conference room, so Jane decided to head downstairs, where they found the greenhouse occupied but the arts and crafts room empty.

"So, what's your real name, then?" Jane asked sarcastically once they were alone, almost challenging him to spin some new story for her that would top the last one. The last one…about Selby…about… Lucas stared down at her and she felt a headache coming on.

"I'm not going to tell you."

"Of course you aren't." She turned to leave the room.

"Because you would just go run a search on that name, and I don't want you to. I changed my name to Lucas Cane, that's what all my documents say now. I changed it for a reason. I wanted to be free of my family."

"You're on such bad terms with them that you legally changed your name?"

"Yes."

"How long ago? How long has it been since you've seen them?"

"A while now. Several years."

"So…are you just playing games with them too? Do they even know where you are? That you go by Lucas Cane now?"

"No. To each of your questions."

Jane stared at him as though he'd sprouted a second head. She'd had friends who hadn't gotten along with their parents, or their siblings, or their cousins, or whoever. She'd never heard of anyone going this far to truly sever ties. "How…how can you do that? No matter how bad they are, they're the only family you've got. If it's been years, maybe things have changed. You can't just-"

"I can, and I did. You don't understand."

"I don't understand," Jane said incredulously. "Yes, you're right. I don't. I woke up in a hospital room to my sick aunt telling me from her wheelchair that I was never going to see my parents again. So no, I don't understand how you can turn your back on your family, no matter how difficult things are between you. You know, I was a teenager, I got into fights with my parents sometimes, but I knew they loved me, and they knew I loved them. At least I have that comfort. But the day will come when it's too late for you to patch things up. And you don't know when that day will come, Lucas, whatever your name is."

"It's Lucas, now. You think things are so simple. They aren't."

"Weren't you the one who said if it were easy it wouldn't be worth doing?"

He sighed and shook his head. "This is really none of your business, you know. I told you I didn't want to talk about my family. You asked why you couldn't find information about me on the internet. I told you why."

Jane glanced down. He had taken his left wrist in his right hand and pushed his watch up and was rubbing his thumb over his pulse. "Because you hate your family so much you legally changed your name?" He was still rubbing his wrist. She looked back up at him.

"My father is an overbearing tyrant. With delusions of grandeur."

Lucas's eyes were bright and intense. She couldn't look away…or rather she was afraid if she did look away she would be looking down at his wrist again. At his scar. _I was burned. _Someone burned him. "Was…was he abusive?" Jane asked quietly, berating herself as soon as she'd asked the question aloud. He was right, this was none of her business. And he _had _said he didn't want to talk about his family, and she _had_ promised herself she wouldn't mention the scar again. And you don't stumble into conversations like this with people you barely know, with people who barely own up to what country they were born in much less child abuse.

He didn't react to the question immediately. He let his right hand drop, turned his left hand, and stared down hard at the scar on his wrist. This time instead of his wrist she watched his face as it transformed into something hard and cold, a deep-seated anger and hatred that she'd had only the tiniest rare glimpses of before. Her breath caught in her throat. There was something frightening about his visage now. Something unsettling. Beneath his quiet exterior, his dry humor and good posture and polite mannerisms, he was restraining a great deal of rage, she realized. She also realized that he'd seen her looking at his wrist. And that he was standing between her and the door. And that he was about a solid foot taller than her. But that was her SHIELD-induced paranoia and trust issues talking, she tried to reassure herself. She glanced around her, remembering the last time she'd had a conversation with someone she thought might be slightly unhinged, Selby, in this very room. She remembered she'd been oddly comforted by standing next to a blow-up plastic penguin which was now nowhere in sight.

Then Lucas's features relaxed and he blinked and she almost thought she had imagined what she'd seen there a second before. Almost.

"It's a symbol historically associated with my family," he said, holding it out for her to see the raised pink flesh of the scar, though not long enough to make anything out other than a general T-shape. "I'd been talking about striking out on my own more and more, and my father doesn't appreciate dissent. One day we were arguing again, and he took an iron with the family seal on it from the fireplace and told me to give him my hand. I didn't think he'd actually do it."

"He…he _branded_ you?" Jane asked, horrified. She glanced back down at his wrist, but he'd dropped the arm back to his side and his sleeve fully covered the scar.

"I suppose that's what you'd call it. He told me I now could no longer ignore my heritage. That was the day I left."

"I'm so sorry," Jane said, feeling the inanity of the words even as she said them. But she couldn't think of anything else. It was a story too horrific to believe, except she'd seen the burn scar, and she'd seen that expression on his face when he'd fixed his eyes on it. _At least it wasn't child abuse_, she thought in one second, then in the next wondered with a wave of nausea what he'd done to his son as a child if he'd branded him with a personalized hot poker when he was an adult. "You never went to the police?"

"He doesn't answer to the law. Only to himself."

Bribery? Friends in high places? Jane found herself wondering again who exactly this family was that they had so much power and wealth and cruelty. "But what about your mother? Does she know what your father did to you? And your brother and sister? You walked out on them all that day for something _he_ did."

"My mother's heart is big enough to love anyone, no matter what they've done. Or what they are. She's always tried to…to be a conduit between my father and me, but there comes a point when no more can be done except to walk away. My brother…" A shadow passed over his face as his eyes grew unfocused and his gaze turned inward, but he seemed to almost physically shake it off and his eyes were back on hers. "He was there when it happened, and he hardly tried to stop it. I wasn't just leaving my father."

Jane shook her head at the horror of it. She didn't need to have siblings to know that she could never stand by while such a thing was inflicted on her brother or sister, or any other human being period. "Okay, I understand now why you say you had to get away from them, but Lucas, you love your mother. You should at least have _her_ in your life. One day she won't be there anymore and it'll be too late. And believe me, you'll regret it."

"I know where I stand with her, and she with me. It will have to be enough. They're all from his world, and I can't be a part of it any longer."

His tone and expression were steadfast and reasonable; she wasn't going to sway him, no matter how convinced she was that he was wrong. And she _did_ remain convinced of that, if not with the complete confidence she'd had before. Her family hadn't been perfect, none were, but it had been happy most of the time. Next to Lucas's it must have looked like perfection. She had no personal experience with whatever kind of abuse Lucas had gone through, and she couldn't pretend to understand the effect it must have on him. She only knew what it was like to have an "Erik" at her high school play or softball tournament or graduation or Parent Day at college and not a "Mom" or "Dad." She only knew what it was like to watch as some of her friends got married and had kids while she shed random tears that her parents wouldn't be there for those things either, and her kids, if she had them, would never know their grandparents. How could Lucas not want at least his mother to be a part of his life? Maybe you only recognized how precious your family was once you lost them.

Jane thought back to the one thing she'd seen him get emotional about until now: work. To how eager he was to see their project brought to fruition. Jane was eager, too, but she felt like she was dragging her feet compared to him, and sometimes he seemed to feel that way, too. His eagerness at times seemed to border on desperation. As though he _needed_ this more than she did in some way. "You're doing this to prove yourself to your family," she blurted out without explanation.

His mouth fell open slightly; he needed no explanation.

"You want them to be proud of you for what you can achieve on your own, apart from them."

His mouth snapped shut and he looked angry. But Jane wasn't frightened this time – this was not the raw rage of before, just the normal temper flare-ups he sometimes had. "I don't need to prove myself to them. I know who I am. They have their ways of doing things and I have mine, and they've never thought much of mine. Nothing's going to change that."

"Hmmm. I don't know. Nothing says 'I'm my own person' quite like being part of the team that invents Earth's first wormhole generator."

The anger faded again and a smile appeared, albeit a bit more predatory than friendly. "I'm not opposed to making statements with my work."

"Me either. And I have a few statements to make to some professors. And some journals. And some professional associations. And a certain secretive organization with a really long name."

"Shall we start working on our statements again tomorrow morning then, Dr. Foster?"

"Respect or annoyance?" she teased at the return to his use of her title, flooded with relief over the change in the tenor of the conversation despite the slight discomfort of emotional whiplash. She was still upset for Lucas – and maybe even a little _with _Lucas – over ending his relationships with his entire family over the actions of his father and the indifference of his brother, for she could not help but view such a thing through the lens of her own profound personal loss. He had made his decision, though. Much as she might like to try to help fix this, she supposed she couldn't. But maybe if he got his name and face in the news for his scientific discovery, it would lead to reconciliation, at least with his mother, maybe his sister, maybe even his brother.

Lucas, meanwhile, was watching her carefully. His eyes flickered down to her feet and quickly back up, which felt slightly awkward to her, as though he were sizing her up for some reason, which should be entirely unnecessary since they'd been working together for over a month now. "Respect," he finally answered, with a slight bow of his head and without the slightest trace of humor.

The awkwardness shot up to the roof and Jane gave him a goofy grin before letting her gaze drift away toward the model airplanes hanging from the ceiling. She absently wondered if they'd been there since the summer or for years. "Well," she began, turning back to Lucas, "I guess I'll go get that e-mail to Tony Stark typed up. I'll send it as soon as we have the satellite in the morning. And you…get some sleep. You look kind of beat."

He answered only with his standard "mmm" that meant…whatever it meant. Jane had largely ceased trying to guess. At least now she understood why he sometimes evaded her questions – some of the answers were highly personal and highly unpleasant. She raised her brows and smiled, then left him alone in the arts and crafts room.

/

* * *

/

The door safely closed behind him, Loki crossed the miniscule chambers to peer out the narrow window. Tension slowly poured out of him – tension from being Lucas, from being _here_, from being restricted in his use of magic, from being constantly alone no matter how many people surrounded him. Schooled posture melted into slumped shoulders and leaning against the wall to take the weight off his right foot.

"_If there's anywhere you can leave behind all formality and be yourself other than in your own private chambers it's here. Even if 'yourself' is entirely uncultured and uncivilized," his mother said as the two of them sat in the family's private garden, Loki having just apologized for wiping milk from his mouth with his sleeve._

"_I'll tell Thor. He can get it out of his system here and stop acting like that everywhere else."_

"_Oh, you two are so horrible to each other," Frigga said, but Loki knew she was only teasing and flashed her a big toothy grin._

Loki let his eyes drift closed. He had always loved that garden. The area around the palace was full of gardens, but only in that one could he be assured of privacy and truly be himself. How much he would rather be there than here. He pictured it in his mind, every detail of it – the benches and picnic table, the pond home to colorful fish, the trees enchanted to attract songbirds and squirrels and other small creatures, the flawlessly manicured lawn, the topiary bushes that would transform into the animals they resembled at the touch of a hand, patches of sunlight and shade perfectly planned for all times of day. At least here he had one utilitarian room to call his own, where he could safely leave Lucas behind and be himself.

His thoughts turned inexorably to the encounter he'd just had with Jane. Unexpected laughter pealed out from behind closed lips. Unexpected, because nothing that had just happened in the hobby room was funny. Entertaining, perhaps, in a sense, for he always found a certain degree of entertainment in observing people's reaction to his manipulation of them, but not funny.

When Loki lied, he lied with conviction. Anything less and the lie might be met with suspicion. And so, once he was certain Jane had noticed his scar and made the intended connection, he'd decided to look at it for the first time since Odin had put it there, having kept it covered with long sleeves and, usually, a watch. She wouldn't recognize it for what it was; it wasn't a literal rendition of the hammer she'd seen, but rather an almost artistic depiction of a hammer, a royal symbol going back at least as far as Odin's long-dead father Borr, predating the forging of Mjolnir. His reaction to it had been entirely unfeigned.

_The mark of your heritage_, Odin had called it. If Loki could burn it off, freeze it off, scratch it off, or simply erase it with a thought he would have done so in a heartbeat, but it was part of an enchantment Odin had placed on him and there was nothing Loki himself could do to remove it. One in a string of cruel jokes this hammer imprinted on his wrist was. Asgard's royal line was most assuredly _not_ his heritage. Once Odin had added an extra enchantment to Mjolnir, created as the physical embodiment of that ancient symbol, Loki could no longer even lift it. He recalled his attempt to, on Midgard. He was the King of Asgard, the greatest authority in all the Nine Realms, and he could not lift it. Not with one hand, not with two. The King of Asgard, but he was not worthy. At least then he'd had the minor consolation that neither was Thor, mortal though he was at the time. But later, on the bridge, when Thor had placed the hammer on his chest and he'd been pinned there, unable to remove it, and Thor walked away, turned his back to him with such faith in his complete helplessness…that had been the height of indignity.

And now this symbol of his disgrace, of the heritage that was _not_ his, was seared into his flesh.

"Allow me to introduce you to Loki," he said, softly for the walls were thin. He recalled the fear he'd caught in Jane's eyes when he looked up from his wrist. It both gratified and further angered him, in a conflict of reactions he barely recognized and certainly made no effort to untangle. He had not always been so full of rage. But it had been a very long time since it was not at least simmering, hidden somewhere underneath the surface.

Jane and her questions. Jane and her deductions. He'd given her a carefully spun version of the truth, and from that she'd come disturbingly closer to the real truth than probably anyone else; he'd wanted to repair a necessary relationship, gain her sympathy, and reaffirm his ability to manipulate her to his own ends, not let her quite so deeply into his head. She was so very close – just a bit behind. He tried to imagine Odin being "proud" of him for helping create a device to carry him to Svartalfheim and getting the enchantments removed. It _would_ be an impressive feat…but he was quite certain that Odin's reaction would not be pride.

He had already tried that – proving himself, making them proud. After a millennium of failing to live up to his father's expectations, an opportunity of unimaginable proportions had fallen into his lap, begging to be put to use. He had tried to show himself the most Aesir of the Aesir and that had not been enough. Odin's reaction had been disappointment and rejection. What more could he possibly do? And although he refused to accept much of the blame for it, Midgard had been an utter failure. No, there was nothing more he could do to prove himself now, not the way he would have chosen. Nothing except wrest control from Odin permanently by utterly destroying him. As appealing as the idea was at times, as much as he hated Odin for the deception that was his entire life…he could still feel that warm, calloused palm as he tentatively reached out for and held it after Odin collapsed in the Weapons Vault. He could still feel the loathing and rage and resentment and indignation and pain…and worst of all the longing. Longing so deep it hurt, and hurt even more because he had to conceal it. Then hurt more again when he opened it up as he did now to examine it after so long hidden away. Longing for the closeness that Thor had with him. For the trust he enjoyed despite having done little to earn it other than proving the physical strength he'd been born to. To be considered _worthy_ as Thor always had been outside of a three-day blip and as Loki never had been in over a thousand years – at least now he knew why.

That longing, that childish _weakness_, made him angry at himself, at Odin for creating and perpetuating the wretched circumstances in the first place, at Thor for his ignorance and arrogance, and even at his mother for going along with it and thinking that one more hug would make everything all right. There was plenty of anger to go around. Enough for many Aesir lifetimes. Enough for eternity.

The anger needed an outlet. Trapped inside him indefinitely it would explode. Loki had nothing against explosions, occasionally even enjoyed them. But if _he_ exploded, he would pay a heavy price. If he killed a mortal, he would himself be killed, if Odin could be believed, and thus far everything Odin had told him about his curses had proven true, though sometimes still difficult to predict. If he lost control, then Heimdall, assuming he was still looking – and Loki suspected he'd _never_ stopped looking at him ever since Baldur's death – would know how close he was to Jane and Thor would put an immediate end to his plans.

His plans…get to Svartalfheim. Free himself of Odin's curses. He had already decided he would first go to Brokk, whom he'd known for centuries. Unfortunately not all of their encounters had been friendly, but the two bore a certain grudging respect for each other. Brokk was the most powerful master of dark elven magic Loki knew of, so he saw no reason to start with anyone lesser even if others may be more inclined to assist him. Besides, as he'd already realized, Curse Number One would not harm him for forcing the non-mortal Brokk to do what he needed him to if he could not let bygones be bygones.

And after that…

After that…

Loki swallowed hard. He almost pushed the thought away as he had many times previously, but this time, for the first time really, he let it play itself out.

After that he did not know.

He'd not always known on Asgard. It had not always mattered. When it had, when Thor had known exactly what he was to do and Loki had been adrift, he would sometimes pick fights, sometimes leave on long journeys alone without telling anyone where he was going. Then he would set himself on some new course, or else settle lazily into the old one, and all would be as it always had been.

But at least on Asgard he'd had a place he believed to be his. A comfortable place for the most part, a familiar place at least, a place that was _his_, even if he still sometimes chafed against it. And if he ever forgot it, Thor was there to remind him.

_It doesn't matter now either_, he thought. _I am young; my life is long. I don't need to plan everything. I merely need to prepare for anything. Another opportunity will come. And the first step is to reach Svartalfheim_.

He took a deep, calming breath, ready to believe these self-assurances. He thought again about Jane, and her intention to send an e-mail early tomorrow morning to request the data from the "failed event," his failure to destroy Jotunheim that had been visible from Midgard through the branches of Yggdrasil. That data should help them pinpoint the exact location of the branch that terminated over Midgard, and also identify exactly what form of energy was expended right at the mouth. That, in turn, should show them what they needed to replicate, what exactly they needed to direct up to connect to that mouth. Then Loki would need to either discover what adjustments needed to be made to send him to Svartalfheim instead of Asgard, or journey first to Asgard and then to the hidden portal he'd learned to use in his youth to travel onward to Svartalfheim.

They needed that data, and they needed it quickly. Loki would need to rise early, to be ready to approve Jane's e-mail as soon as she sent it.

He would need to sleep. Five nights now he had not, except for perhaps an hour or two before the dream had started last night. He knew that his mind would very soon lose its sharpness if he did not sleep, and that right now he had little more than his mind to rely on. His eyes slid slowly to the left, to stare at the bed as though it were an enemy. But the enemy was not the bed. The enemy was not here.

"You have no dominion over me, filthy creatures," he proclaimed, a little more loudly than he should have, probably. He was worried about what his neighbors might hear, he told himself, not…. _Let Thanos hear. Let his lapdog hear. He cannot touch me,_ he thought, shouted really, only without his physical voice. He sucked in a breath afterward, questioning the wisdom of the impetuous outburst.

_Fate has been harsh enough_, he reminded himself. _Do not needlessly tempt it further. Not now. Not yet._

/

* * *

/

Odin returned from Svartalfheim confirming what Gullveig had warned – that he would hear no different. He'd been met by black- and gold-clad warriors standing stiffly at attention, weapons at the ready, while other shadowy figures lurked nearby, blanketing the area in the mists of magic. From the open golden plain where the bifrost had traditionally deposited travelers and the tesseract now did the same, to the underground stone fortress that was Svartalfheim's seat of power, the entire route was lined with these soldiers and sorcerers. He returned without progress.

He overruled the near-unanimous voice of his advisors and went on alone to Jotunheim, speaking first with Helblindi, then with Byleister, then with Dirnolek, the former two Laufey's sons, the latter his Prime Warrior. Each was engaged in a struggle for power and control of Jotunheim's meager remaining resources, and each insisted on the same thing: Loki and the Ice Casket must be surrendered to _his_ faction, and the tesseract must be given to Vanaheim's safekeeping. Odin strongly suspected Helblindi and Byleister in particular had never even heard of the tesseract before. The Dark Elves, then, had planted that part of the ultimatum. The Jotuns themselves didn't seem particularly concerned about the tesseract, but mentioned it almost as if by rote every time Loki and the Ice Casket were mentioned.

"Did they say what they wanted with Loki?" Frigga asked from where she leaned in the doorway between the throne room and the private study, where Odin and Thor stood. From her position she could see both rooms, and she nodded to Sif, who inclined her head respectfully but anxiously, glancing off to her left as though she could see through the wall into the study. Thor's friends and her husband's advisors, many of whom were also friends, were anxiously gathering in the throne room to hear the All-Father's report. Her eyes flickered around the milling crowd. _Why are there no friends here for Loki?_ There _were_ a few he might have called "friend," but none who were terribly close to him, as far as she knew, and none from the court. She refocused her attention on the study as Odin answered.

"I didn't ask. I stated our position and saw no need to legitimize theirs. Prisoner exchange was never a part of our truce, even if our truce were still in effect."

"Did either side take prisoners?" Thor asked. He knew that had occurred during the Vanir-Aesir War, but he'd never heard of such a thing in the Ice War.

"No," Odin answered curtly. "There was no point. Asgard is not suited to caring for Jotun prisoners, and Jotunheim is not suited to caring for Aesir prisoners."

Thor caught the look Odin and Frigga exchanged, and knew immediately what they were thinking. One Jotun _had_ been taken and cared for on Asgard, and he had adapted well. Thor wondered how many such looks about the secrets of Loki's birth he'd missed over the centuries.

"What do you think they want to do to him?" she persisted.

"I don't know, Frigga," he snapped, and Thor saw another look.

Their tempers were fraying. So was his. So was everyone's. He stepped between them to warn of something that had occurred to him while his father was on Jotunheim…and to distract from the friction. "There's a hidden portal to Svartalfheim in a cave behind a waterfall on the River Boll. Loki and I found it when we were young. We used to sneak off there seeking adventure. It requires innate magic to use, but Loki was able to do it even as a youth, so there must be many others who can as well."

"I know of it," Odin said.

"You do?" Thor asked, surprised, but then realized he really should not have been. There was probably very little in Asgard the All-Father did not know of.

"My brothers created it with the help of a Dark Elf. It doesn't require innate magic; each of us had a key. But sufficient innate magic will do. You boys weren't half as clever as you thought you were, Thor. Two stealth Einherjar followed you every time you used that portal. The Dark Elves are capable of forging their own new portals with sufficient effort, but I'll order that one sealed and guarded."

"I've already done so," Thor said, still reeling from a revelation that really, truly should not have mattered at this point, but part of him, he feared, would always react as a little boy around his father, afraid he was going to find himself in trouble, ready to defend himself against it. Each time he and Loki returned from Svartalfheim he'd nearly shaken apart in fright, feigning illness and hiding out in his chambers to avoid his father reading the guilt in his face. Loki had been afraid only the first time, when he hadn't yet been certain that his new trick of hiding himself – and by extension Thor – from Heimdall's gaze had worked. Loki had claimed not to have been afraid even the first time, but upon their return the brothers had both holed up in Thor's chambers and not left each other's sides for three full days except for quick runs to the bathroom. Now Thor wondered if Loki's trick had been quite as perfected as he'd confidently proclaimed then; he'd been prone to declaring a new skill mastered only to discover a flaw once put into actual use, often at Thor's expense.

"Did you hear me?" Odin was asking testily. "I want you to leave for Midgard in the morning."

And no, Thor had not. "I'm ready," he answered with a firm nod.

"While you're gone, I'll address the citizens. Rumors are flying. That must stop. Our people must know what we're facing. They must know how to prepare. The Vanir among us must know that we trust in their loyalty."

"Do we?" Thor interjected. He'd heard the rumors as well, through his friends. Regular travel through the portals between Vanaheim and Asgard continued, and with it traveled news and suspicious glances.

"We have no choice. They're as much Asgardian citizens as their neighbors, and we can hardly treat them as anything less without cause."

"I have many good friends among the Vanir of both Asgard and Vanaheim," Frigga put in. "I'll speak out as well."

Odin nodded his appreciation to her. "There's one more thing. Frigga, would you mind…"

She frowned, but nodded back to him and went out into the throne room, closing the door behind them.

"Thor," he said as soon as they were alone and the door closed. He stepped from behind the rectangular table to close the small gap between them. "Can your friends on Midgard find Loki?" he asked quietly.

"They did before," Thor answered, a slight rise in his intonation indicating the question behind the words.

Odin nodded. "Ask them to find him."

"Perhaps it's best we don't know," Thor said, though it wasn't _himself_ knowing that concerned him.

"We need all of our options."

"Turning Loki over –"

"Is one of our options."

Thor straightened his back and filled his lungs, drawing himself up to his full height.

Odin cut him off before his temper could explode. "Not our first option. But it _is_ one of them. I need to know where he is."

"I will not allow Loki to be sent to Jotunheim," Thor said, as though repeating a mantra. Nothing, _nothing_ his father or anyone else said would budge him on this.

"You forget your place, Thor. Do not try me."

Thor's jaw trembled and his eyes narrowed. If he closed them he was certain he would believe himself back in the destroyed observatory, calling his father a fool while Loki watched from the side. He ground his teeth tightly together to avoid giving voice to the fury that coursed through his veins. He couldn't afford to get himself banished again. Asgard couldn't afford it. Loki couldn't afford it. Even if this _were_ the first option, the best option, even the only option, even if his father deemed it the right decision for Asgard, he would never accept it. He had made a promise. He couldn't keep it if he were thrown out of Asgard and made mortal, or removed from his father's inner circle in some other way. He held his tongue. His breathing slowed.

Odin watched and waited until Thor was calm again. "There's another reason I need to know his location. If any from the other realms know it and we do not, they have an advantage over us. If we know it and they do not, we have an advantage over them."

Thor considered that for a moment. He wanted to know where his brother was so he could protect him, but his father had said several times now that information was a form of power, and right now Asgard had a dearth of that particular form. Everyone knew where the Ice Casket and the tesseract were, no secret had been made of it, but no one – so far as Asgard was aware – knew where Loki was, other than that he was one among some seven billion people on Midgard. And surely the others were searching. He nodded, acquiescing. There was no need to fight this battle now, anyway.

"Go, Thor. Meet with your friends. Find out all you can. But be discreet. Don't allow any others to learn what you have. I still no more want him hunted by Midgardians than by any other realm's inhabitants."

Thor nodded again, more slowly this time. "Discreet" wouldn't be easy. It didn't come naturally to him the way it did to Loki. He would have to put some thought into this.

* * *

/

_So, did you think Loki was really going to tell Jane the truth (the actual truth)? He's not going to tell her anything that's not in his best interest to do so, or at least what he perceives as his best interest at the time. But he certainly sounded like he was going to tell her! I've actually already written a "pre-version" of when Jane does finally learn the truth, and it'll be a bit more dramatic._

_The next chapter was a tough one for me to write, at least internally - for the most part the actual words came out more or less smoothly. It's kind of an odd chapter too...I'll be very curious to hear what you think of it. Plot-wise it kind of has to be there._

_For teasers for "Chapter 25: Discretion," I'll have to leave it at "Thor goes to Midgard with a difficult message."_

_And here's an excerpt (Thor's POV):_

But it wasn't until his recent visit to Vanaheim – which he could not consider a success, except in that he didn't take a swing at anyone – that he'd borne any real responsibility. And even that was not the same – when Odin slept, he spoke for Asgard. With Odin awake, he spoke for Odin. The difference was not just semantics; his duty now was to convey what Odin wanted conveyed and to learn what Odin wanted learned. Thor's freedom lay only in how he would accomplish the assigned task.

_Thanks for reading, and extra thanks for reviewing. Your comments and questions are always greatly appreciated._


	26. (25) Discretion

**Beneath**

Chapter Twenty-Five – Discretion

Morning came after a sleepless night, and it was time for Thor to depart as Asgard's emissary. It was not a role he was comfortable with. It was not a role he had any real experience with. The closest he'd come to it was the various times he'd spoken for Odin while his father was in the Sleep, some two or three days here and there, though longer lately. During those times his only real responsibility was to keep the realm running – to approve things that couldn't wait and to postpone things that could, and Odin dealt with most of those decisions in advance. Thor had taken advantage of the additional power the first few times, in rather innocent ways, and his father had not begrudged him the competitions or feasts he ordered. But one year a dam had broken on the Sekin River, and his approval was needed to reassign Einherjar to assist with the recovery. Thor had gone mountain-climbing with the Warriors Three and Loki, who'd tried to convince him not to go. He'd returned to a livid Odin and a punishment of one month in the snowy mountains without provisions, after putting Mjolnir and his back to work rebuilding the dam by himself. He'd undertaken his responsibility slightly more conscientiously after that.

But it wasn't until his recent visit to Vanaheim – which he could not consider a success, except in that he didn't take a swing at anyone – that he'd borne any real responsibility. And even that was not the same – when Odin slept, he spoke for Asgard. With Odin awake, he spoke for Odin. The difference was not just semantics; his duty now was to convey what Odin wanted conveyed and to learn what Odin wanted learned. Thor's freedom lay only in how he would accomplish the assigned task.

As he made his way with slow heavy steps out of his chambers, down the stairs, out of the palace, and toward the Rainbow Bridge where Heimdall stood watch at the wooden structure in lieu of the observatory, Thor thought back to the inappropriately-timed hike into the mountains , ages and ages ago. Was that what Loki had meant by being in his shadow? That Loki would warn him not to do things and he would go ahead and do them anyway? He felt ignored? It was true that Loki seemed to like giving him advice, and it was equally true that Thor frequently, perhaps even usually, ignored it. But Thor also gave Loki advice – more so in their younger years – and Loki heeded it with about the same frequency as Thor.

It made his head hurt to try to make sense out of what little Loki had told him about why he was so angry at him. He wished Loki would just explain it. Not shout. Not rant. Just explain. Perhaps when he returned from Midgard he'd be able to…

"Good morning, my prince."

"Good morning, Heimdall."

"Where have you decided to go?"

Thor explained; Heimdall nodded. Thor had put a great deal of thought into it, and decided there was only one place that made sense, given what he needed to do.

/

* * *

/

Thor found himself in the exact location he'd described to Heimdall: the helicopter landing spot high up on Tony Stark's tower in New York. He looked around him; his heart clenched along with his fists. _There_ was the spot he had fought a wild-eyed Loki, where he'd tried to convince him to fight with him instead of against him, where his naïve hope had spiked, where his brother had slipped a knife into his side in response. The whole outdoor area – Thor wasn't sure what to call it, "balcony" didn't seem quite right – looked different now. The device Erik Selvig had been forced to create was gone. Thor followed the stairs up to the door that hadn't been necessary when he'd left here, when the massive glass window had been shattered. Some signs of the battle remained, but much had already been repaired. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that repairs to other buildings were not all coming along as quickly.

The door was locked, so Thor carefully rapped his knuckles on the glass. He didn't see anyone in the large open room beyond and thus doubted he would be heard, but then he remembered the invisible talking machine-man who would surely alert Stark – whose presence in the building Heimdall had confirmed – that he had a visitor.

A couple of minutes later Tony appeared from around a corner trotting toward the door in what had to be the Midgardian equivalent of formal attire, judging by the layers and the materials that even without touching them Thor could tell were finer than anything he'd worn during his time as a mortal on Midgard. Tony mouthed some words that Thor couldn't hear through the glass, and the door opened of its own accord. Thor stepped through and met Tony just inside the threshold.

"Thor!" Tony exclaimed, slapping a hand on his shoulder, then yanking it back and flexing his fingers. "All decked out in the drapes and the full-course armor, hm? Anyone following behind you I might be underdressed for?"

Thor stepped inside while Tony lingered behind a moment, scanning the skyline.

"No one follows me, Tony Stark. I've come alone."

"Hey, that's good. That's really good," he said, stepping away from the door again and allowing it to close behind him. "Social visit then? Catching up with the old pals from Earth? You should've given me some warning, you know. I could've put together a thing."

"A thing?"

Tony was striding over to his bar. "A thing. A get-together. A class reunion. A party, my friend. What can I get you?"

Thor had been following Tony, but stopped short in the middle of the room. The hole in the floor formed by the repeated impact of Loki's body had been cleared of debris and filled with water. Bright red fish swam in it and a steady stream of bubbles rose to the surface from beneath some rocks.

"Too much?" Tony asked, leaving the bar and coming to stand next to Thor and look down at his new indoor fishpond. "Pepper thinks so. Also she says it's a safety hazard. To which I said…"

Thor glanced up at Tony when he didn't continue. Tony rolled his eyes – apparently that was what he'd "said."

"You never met Pepper, did you? She's my…well, she's a lot of things. You can meet her tonight. She's swinging by here in" – he glanced at his watch – "a little over an hour. Charity thing, but we can cancel. Unless you want to come with? I could probably swing you a seat."

"I, uh, no." Thor tore his gaze away from the fishpond again. He wasn't sure what to think about it. He didn't particularly _want_ to think about it. "I've come on my father's behalf. I need to discuss some serious things with you," he said, giving a little extra weight to the word _serious_. Even when fighting Chitauri monsters, even when nearly dead from hurtling through the void of space, the man Thor had chosen to come to was rarely serious, and there was no jest in anything Thor had to say.

"Huh." Tony squared his shoulders. "Serious as in I'm underdressed?"

Thor wasn't certain, but guessed Tony was referring to his metal suit. "No," he said, then added, "Not at the moment."

"Uh-huh. Okay. Jarvis, call Pepper and cancel. Tell her Thor showed up on my helo pad. She'll understand. And you, should I call anyone else? I know Steve's in town. I think the rest of our merry band is scattered at the moment. Jarvis has everybody on speed dial, though. I mean, literally everybody."

"I would rather you didn't. This matter requires some discretion."

"Discretion, huh? Okay, I can do discretion. Drinks first, though. Somehow I'm guessing I'm going to need one. What'll it be?" Tony crossed back over to the bar and stepped behind it.

It was early for Thor, but in New York it was almost evening. And if this was how Midgardians – or at least Tony Stark – handled official meetings, then that was fine with him. Besides, he knew it would take a good many of these drinks before he would feel any effect. "Johnnie Walker Blue Label," he answered, going for the one Loki had favored.

"Runs in the family, I see."

Thor watched as Tony poured two of the same drink, then accepted the glass handed to him. Tony then led him over to a brown leather sofa, past the fishpond in the middle of the room. "Could we go somewhere else?" Thor asked.

Tony paused, glanced back at the fishpond. "You're right. Too much. Okay, sure. Follow me, Goldilocks."

They got into an elevator and Tony pressed one of the many buttons along the wall. The door opened into a corridor of sorts, a pathway through various rooms not separated by walls. They passed a sitting room and a kitchen and a dining room before going through the first door Thor had seen, into a black-walled room filled with large black leather chairs and sofas and strategically-placed miniature silver tables.

"Home theater," Tony said. "It's soundproofed. Jarvis, scan for bugs."

"None detected, sir," the disembodied voice answered, making Thor uneasy.

"Discretion," Tony explained. "People come and go from this building all day long. This floor is part of my private living space, but even here I'm not the only one who has access. No one can eavesdrop on us in here, though. Satisfied?"

Thor nodded, although he wasn't sure what bugs had to do with anything. It was good enough that they would have privacy here.

Tony dropped into a stuffed leather chair and Thor took the one next to him, though he would have rather remained standing, even if the furniture fit him as comfortably as it did Tony. He took an experimental sip of his drink. It was all right, smooth, a slightly smoky flavor, but he didn't understand why Loki had insisted on drinking bottles of the stuff while incarcerated in a SHIELD facility.

"Hm, what I said before? Maybe not. I forgot, you and Loki aren't genetically related, right? You want something else? Single malt, maybe? Some people are purists. There's a full bar at the back of the room." Tony was already standing.

"No," Thor said, setting his drink down. "This is irrelevant. I'm here to discuss-"

"Right, right. Serious stuff," Tony said, sitting down again, stretching his arms out in front of him and wiggling his fingers, before clasping them loosely over his lap. "Okay, I'm all ears. Shoot."

Thor shook his head minutely, deciding to ignore anything Tony said that didn't directly pertain to what he came here to say. Which was…

Tony sat there watching, waiting, occasionally blinking, and actually remaining silent.

"We fought a grand battle together, did we not, Tony?" Thor finally said with a winsome grin.

"Oh, boy."

"And we forged a strong alliance. We fought well together." Although this was clearly a room meant for sitting, Thor again wished he were standing.

"Okay, spit it out. What's up? Because I'm definitely starting to feel underdressed."

Thor took a deep breath. As if this weren't awkward enough, Tony Stark along with the rest of his realm knew nothing of the other realms. "Asgard is facing some difficulties right now, and we are in need of assistance," he began somewhat bashfully. By his reckoning it was still Asgard which owed Midgard and not the other way around. He gave a brief overview of the Nine Realms and their relationship with each other; Tony only interrupted once, to ask Jarvis to record their conversation to his "personal drive." Next he recounted the journeys of the delegation from Svartalfheim to each of the other realms, except Midgard and Asgard.

"Why didn't they come to Midgard? I mean to Earth?" Tony asked.

"Gullveig – Vanaheim's king – said it was because you don't know enough about the other realms to be able to voice an opinion."

"I think we should still get a vote," Tony said, managing to sound offended.

"And who would cast your vote, if you had one?" Thor asked.

Tony opened his mouth, then closed it again. "You've got a point," he said a second later. "Still, it's the principle. Anyway, what exactly did we miss our chance to vote on?"

Thor explained the demands for Loki, the Ice Casket – which he also had to explain – and the tesseract. If there was any remaining levity in Tony, it disappeared at the mention of the tesseract.

"When somebody starts demanding something like the tesseract out of the blue – I don't care if they're your supposed allies – I start thinking ulterior motive. We would've voted for Asgard. We like fifty percent of you that we've met, and you helped us stop the fifty percent we don't. So what's their game? Vanaheim and the other –heim."

"Svartalfheim? We aren't sure. Father believes Svartalfheim is behind these demands."

"But Svartalfheim isn't demanding the tesseract for itself. Maybe they plan to steal it from Vanaheim?"

"Perhaps. Vanaheim is a primarily an agrarian society. The tesseract belongs on Asgard. We have protected powerful artifacts for millennia, and we don't use them against the other realms. But…because of what Loki did they have cause to doubt us now."

"Because he used the tesseract against us?"

Thor fidgeted in his chair. He decided he'd best not mention that the other realms were not overly concerned about what Loki had done on Midgard. "Partly," he hedged. "But more because he tried to destroy Jotunheim."

Tony narrowed his eyes. "Wait, did he lead some kind of bioengineered army to try to take over Jotunheim, too? What, does he bore easily? ADD with a predilection for subjugation?"

"No. He tried to…to destroy it. Completely. To turn the entire realm into rubble, killing all its inhabitants. I stopped him before he was able to finish the task."

Tony froze for a moment, then drained his glass and set it down with a hard ringing clunk on the table. "So…we got off lucky with the bioengineered army shooting up a city and damaging a lot of buildings."

The intonation didn't indicate a question, so Thor didn't treat it as one.

"So all the rest of these realms are going to gang up on you and go to war if you don't meet their demands. Thor, if you need me, I'm there, buddy. I'm sure the others are all in, too. But there's just a few of us. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to turn over some modesty leaf here, I'm just-"

"We don't need the assistance of the Avenger warriors. You're right. You would be insignificant next to the onslaught of seven realms. We-"

"I never said _insignificant_."

Thor frowned and ignored him. "That isn't the kind of assistance we need from Midgard. From you."

"From me? Me personally? Wait, your old man is making the rounds of these other realms meeting with kings and queens, and you came to see me?"

Thor frowned and decided to jump straight to the unpleasant part before Tony could start fancying himself a king. "Tony, there's something I need to tell you that may not sit well with you. We couldn't give Loki to the Jotuns even if we wanted to. We don't know exactly where he is. Except that he's on Earth." Tony blinked heavily and sat up straighter, but said nothing, so Thor forged ahead. "Father sent him here with enchantments restricting his actions, as a punishment that we hope he can learn from. But then he hid himself from our gatekeeper, and we don't know where he went. Father would like you to find him, but to do so in secrecy, and to tell his location only to me. We don't want SHIELD or any of Earth's other authorities to pursue him."

"Uh-huh. So Loki's running around on Earth God knows where, doing God knows what, and you want me to find him but not tell anyone else he's back. Does that about cover it?"

Thor nodded. "The other realms also know Loki's on Midgard. He may require protection."

"Okay, no problem," Tony said with a slow, thoughtful nod.

"Really?" Thor asked, releasing a relieved breath.

"Yeah, really. No, not really, Thor," he said, standing. "Do they have hallucinogens on Asgard? Look, maybe in Asgard your memories are super short or something, but it was just a couple of months ago that we were risking our lives to stop Loki, and we sent him back with _you_ to make sure he didn't ever come back here. And you gave him round trip tickets? Without keeping track of him? Without _telling_ anyone? Has Asgard collectively gone off its meds? Do you remember what he did when he was here before? Actually, what he did here twice, if we add in the pre-game show in New Mexico. How can you expect me not to tell anybody that he's right back in our backyard again?"

"He can't hurt anyone, Tony. Any harm he inflicts on another will be inflicted on himself as well. And if he uses the innate magic that he wields for ill intent, he will also suffer for that. If he were wreaking havoc in your realm, you would have heard about it, would you not?"

"You're telling me he's harmless, then?"

Thor started to say yes, because that was the easy answer, the answer Tony wanted to hear, and therefore the answer that would make Thor's task easier. But it also wouldn't be the truth. "Not exactly. Loki is clever, and a skilled manipulator with or without magic. So long as Loki lives he will never be harmless, unless he chooses to be. Loki…I know what you think of him, but he…I know another side of him. His plan here failed. He won't try to repeat a failure. I hope he's chosen to reflect on what's happened and learn from it, as I did when I was on Midgard."

"Why do I get the feeling you guys see us as your personal playground? And by the way, I hate to tell you, buddy, but when bad guys learn from their mistakes, they're usually learning how to be _better bad guys_. I think you're being way overly optimistic and even venturing into Pollyanna-land, at our expense, I might add."

Thor finally stood up, now looking down at Tony. "He's my brother. I know him. You don't."

"You do, huh? Did you expect him to come here and kill a bunch of people and try to take over the planet? To force a whole crowd of people in Germany to kneel to him or face death? To nearly sever a guy's eyeball and grin at the people running away screaming in terror while he did it? Is that the brother you know? Because that's the Loki _I _know," he said with a jab of his thumb to his chest.

Thor took a deep breath and turned away. He didn't want Tony to see the effect his words had on him. He hadn't heard about the eyeball, and only a brief reference to enforced kneeling, without explanation. _"I _am _a king! The rightful king of Asgard," _Loki had told him on a Midgardian cliff. He desired subjects? Needed them, to make him feel he was Thor's equal? But Thor had never had subjects. Had never been made king. Perhaps Loki needed to feel he was Thor's _superior_, not his equal. Thor's mind rebelled instantly and stridently against Loki being his superior. _He_ was the first-born, the heir, the natural leader, the… Thor's face fell and his eyes drifted closed for a moment. _The superior_. He flashed back to the infamous trip to Jotunheim. Pushing Loki aside on the bridge, impatient with his methods of subterfuge. Overruling Loki and telling him to know his place when Loki tried to get him to leave without a fight. But that wasn't _always_ the way things went, was it? Thor tried to remember the last time it didn't, and found he couldn't. He felt sick. He would've given anything to be able to talk to Loki at that very moment, but it wasn't possible. And he still had a task to accomplish.

"Perhaps I don't know my brother, or myself, as well as I ought to," Thor said, turning back to face Tony again, amazed the man had waited so quietly, and then pretending he didn't see what looked like pity on his face. "In time I hope to change that. But for now, you must understand that while we seek Loki's location, the other realms may be seeking Loki himself. As long as they don't know where he is, Midgard is probably the safest place in the universe for him right now."

"You know, you'll have to forgive me if I can't quite bring myself to think of Loki's safety as a top priority. What if the other realms come knocking at Earth's door demanding we hand him over? What if they come here and _find_ him? If you're asking us to go to war against entire planets nobody here's ever even heard of to protect _Loki_…let's just say you're asking an awful lot."

"Tony…when Loki was imprisoned on Asgard, before he was sent to Midgard, he asked me for only one thing, as a brother. And I swore to him I would not let him be sent to Jotunheim, no matter what. I will defy my father if I have to, to keep my oath. Unless the All-Father can find a way to avert it, there will be war between the realms, perhaps war such as not even he has seen in all his years. Midgard is not prepared for this kind of war, and no mention has been made of involving you. They are insisting _we_ retrieve Loki and surrender him. But this is why we need your discretion. Should someone from Svartalfheim or one of the others begin seeking out your leaders about Loki's presence, they can't be tempted to divulge his location if they don't know it, or even know that he's here. If anyone threatens Earth, the oath of allegiance I made to Phil Coulson still stands; I won't abandon you to the whims of the other realms. But in the end it is _my_ duty to protect Loki, not yours. I understand your reluctance to involve yourself on behalf of my brother. I understand your dislike of him."

Tony's eyes widened, and Thor realized he'd said something wrong. "It's not so much that I dislike him, really. I'm sure he's lots of fun at parties, what with the parlor tricks and all. I'm just really not a fan in general of people who try to take over my planet."

"You have a similar sense of humor, you and my brother." _When I can understand yours_, Thor silently added.

"Oh, now you're just trying to insult me. Because I don't really remember him having so much of a funny bone. Oh, wait, was him throwing me out a window supposed to be a joke? I don't remember laughing. There were rumors of screaming but I deny them."

"Will you find him for me, and keep his location in confidence?" Thor asked, regretting ever mentioning it.

"I can try, and…maybe. If he's endangering anyone-"

"He won't be. I don't think so, anyway. But if he is, of course, I understand. Still, please alert me before you take action."

"Okay, I can live with that. It might not be that easy to find him, though. Last time Bruce came up with a way to narrow down his location based on signs of gamma radiation that came from the glowstick, and then used that to narrow down the number of camera feeds that had to be scanned. No glowstick means no narrowing it down. There are billions of cameras out there. I can get access to a lot of 'em, a lot more if I have reason to get more aggressive with the more protected ones. You don't have any idea, on the entire planet, where he could be?"

"Father originally sent him to a clearing in a forest in a land called Canada. He was still in the forest when he began hiding himself from our gatekeeper."

"A forest in Canada. I think that's kind of like saying a building in New York, but okay. You could have said a forest in Russia. Canada narrows it down. _Slightly_," he added and pursed his lips. He picked up his glass and carried it over to the bar, where he set it down and poured a fresh drink. "Not a lot of cameras in Canadian forests, though. Any idea which city this forest is closest to?"

"It lies north of Puente Antiguo, New Mexico."

Tony's eyebrows shot up. "Now _that_ actually narrows it down, assuming you mean more or less directly north, because all of Canada is north of New Mexico. Jarvis, is that Saskatchewan?"

"Yes, sir. Shall I initiate scanning of camera feeds from the province?"

"Do it." Tony issued further instructions that Thor didn't understand, and Thor told him when Loki had been sent to Midgard. The fact that Loki had already been on Earth for about a month and a half seemed to surprise him. Loki was good at hiding, another thing he was better at than Thor. Hiding took patience and an ability to blend in, neither of which was one of Thor's strengths.

Loki was good at hiding… "Tony, would Loki be aware of these camera feeds you're searching?"

Tony was still talking to the invisible Jarvis, but stopped to answer. "Sure. They aren't exactly hidden, most of them. That's part of the point. If you know you're on Candid Camera, you're less likely to go all Bonnie and Clyde. Uh, sorry, commit a bunch of crimes. Anyway, SHIELD found him in no time before. He was mugging for the camera."

"Mugging?"

"Looking up at it and grinning like a Cheshire Cat. He wanted to be found."

"And this is the only way you have to search for him?"

"I guess we could always run searches on sales of Johnnie Walker Blue Label."

"Loki doesn't drink alcohol."

"Could've fooled me."

"He rarely drinks alcohol," Thor corrected.

"Uh-huh. Me, either. Well, if that doesn't do it, does he have anything unusual with him? Something that would give off a fairly uncommon energy signature?"

"He was provided with a few changes of clothes. A satchel to carry them in. That's all. Oh, a necklace from Mother. It's imbued with some kind of magic…but nothing that has an uncommon energy signature, as far as I know."

"Magic to do what?" Tony asked immediately.

"Nothing dangerous. It's…personal."

"And?"

Thor frowned. His brother ought to have a right to some privacy. But he understood Tony's need to know. "It reminds him that our mother loves him."

Tony took a deep breath and nodded. "Wow. That's a weird image." He shook his head rapidly. "Okay, then, yeah, unless you've got some kind of magical Loki-detector I can borrow, running camera feeds through facial recognition software is the only option I've got. But I'm afraid I can see where you're going with this."

"I'm sorry, Tony, I've wasted your time and mine. If Loki doesn't want to be found, if he doesn't want to be seen on these camera feeds, he won't be." Thor stared at the black wall and morosely felt it reflected something of his thoughts at that moment. _Warn Midgard about the upheaval in the realms._ _Find Loki. Protect Loki_. The last, his own addition to his instructions, an interpretation of his father's words, would be considerably more difficult without the second. At least he had accomplished the first.

"Yep, that's what I thought. But don't give up. I can focus on hidden cameras. He can't have avoided _all_ of them."

"He doesn't have to avoid them. As I said, he's clever. I'm sure he could come up with many ways to not be seen on them. He can change his appearance."

Tony had been only half-focused on Thor until the last. "Uh, say that part again? I think I must have misheard that. He can change his appearance? As in…"

"He could make himself look like you or me. Or a woman. Or a child. Or an animal."

"We really need to work on your briefing skills, big guy," Tony said, dropping into the nearest chair. "That's kind of an important piece of information right there. You realize you've just told me we're now looking for a particular piece of hay in a haystack instead of a needle?"

Thor didn't know the expression, but this one at least made sense. "It shouldn't be that bad. He probably wouldn't actually change his appearance. Not for long, anyway. He would probably be punished if he did it for any mischievous purposes." He didn't add that hiding himself from security cameras would actually probably fall under Odin's exception for protecting himself from being hunted.

"Okay, well, we'll start with Saskatchewan, and branch out from there. And I think I might still try the Johnnie Walker thing. But it might take a while. Are you sticking around?"

"I can't. My duty right now is to Asgard. Otherwise, I would very much enjoy having a thing with you."

Tony grimaced. "Probably not quite what you meant to say, there, Princess, but I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt on that one. And bonus points for trying. So how do I let you know if I find him?"

"Just call out Heimdall's name. Trust no one else in this. He'll tell me and I'll return as soon as I'm able."

"Asgard's version of a telephone operator? Okay. Trust no one, got it. Very _X-Files_. Hey, speaking of 'things,' that kind of thing anyway, do you know where your scientist lady friend is right now?"

Thor nodded. "She told me she was going to the Southern Hemisphere," he answered. "Beneath New Zealand."

"Mmm, yeah, you could say that I guess. I'll get you a globe for Christmas. It'll have Saskatchewan and New Mexico and New York and New Zealand and all the hot spots on it. Cold ones, too. So you haven't talked to her since she got to the South Pole?"

"There hasn't been time."

"You want to call her?"

"Call her? You know how to contact her?"

"Uh-huh. I told you, Jarvis has everybody on speed dial. Though it's a little more complicated to the South Pole. They don't exactly have telephone lines. But yeah, I just sent her a bunch of soft-copy stuff a few days ago. She wanted SHIELD's data from whatever it was that happened in the sky after you left New Mexico. So, you wanna talk to her?"

* * *

/

_Uhhh, okay, so this is the chapter I've worried about for a long time now. I have told a couple of you, I think, that the first thing I said after joining some friends to watch _Iron Man_ (which I only did months after seeing _Avengers_, I never even really heard about it before then), was "Wow, I could never write Tony Stark." And when I realized a chapter like this would be needed, I think I was quaking in my boots. I'm happier with it now than I was at first, but I dunno, I still don't feel like I "know" Tony the way I feel like I "know" the main characters in Thor (or at least let's say, am comfortable with my understanding of them). So, I hope it works for you, and if you think I failed miserably, please be gentle about it! ;-)_

_If you're wondering about the Johnnie Walker Blue Label...this will be included as a flashback later (at least that's the current plan, and there's a specific moment planned for it so probably it will stick), which if this were somehow in _Chuck_-universe (sorry, **loved** that show), would be titled "Loki Versus the Johnnie Walker Blue Label."_

_And..."I'm sorry, so sorry," no Loki and no Jane in this chapter at all! Please don't hate me. The next chapter, "Sunset," is all Loki and/or Jane from start to finish. I hope you will enjoy it!_

_Teasers for "Chapter 26: Sunset": Jane gets a special phone call (well, come on, that's an obvious one!); and...hmmm...maybe I should leave it at that. Except there are darts. I really loved writing the darts. Oh, yes, and there's a sunset. And quite a few other things, actually.  
_

_Excerpt:  
_

Loki stared at the wall, on which hung a flat round object, with numbers marked around the outside and two concentric rings marked in broken red and green and a small red circle inside a green circle in the very center. A target. A smile spread over Loki's face – the smile of a hunter spotting his prey after a very long wait. "Would you mind refreshing me on the rules?" he asked, hoping he wasn't asking the Midgardian equivalent of _Would you mind showing me how to use a knife and fork?_ "It's been a while since I've played."

_Voila! Thanks for reading, thanks for reviewing! You make me happy. ;-)_


	27. (26) Sunset

**Beneath**

Chapter Twenty-Six – Sunset

"Jane, this is Rodrigo, you on?"

Jane jumped in surprise at the unexpected voice coming from her hip. She glanced over at Lucas with raised eyebrows. Other than once during a fire alarm – a false one it turned out – when there'd been a station all-call, she'd never received a call on her Kenwood radio.

She unclipped it and thumbed the button. "Yeah, I'm out at the DSL. What's up?"

"You've got a phone call on the Iridium. Can you come in to the station?"

"Uh, yeah, sure. Okay. I'll be there in fifteen minutes. Thanks for letting me know."

"No prob. See you in fifteen."

"The satellite phone?" Lucas asked once Jane had reclipped her radio to her belt.

She nodded, grabbing for the sweater she'd taken off a few hours earlier. "I wonder who's calling." She froze for a second and stared up at Lucas, who'd risen with her. "Oh, God. I hope nothing's happened to Erik." When she went back into motion it was in a frenzy. At the last moment before she pulled on the sweater she saw the tag on the wrong side but ignored it and ran out toward the door where her ECW gear was left.

Lucas followed her out and started suiting up beside her. She spared him a quick curious glance as she yanked up her black Carharrts over her khakis.

"It's lunchtime anyway. I'll walk with you."

"Oh, right. Okay," she said. He looked a little concerned; it was unexpectedly sweet of him, but she didn't spare it much thought. As soon as her gear was on, Lucas just seconds behind her, she was out the door and on her way, running while staring at the ground to make sure she didn't trip or slip, both of which she had a tendency to do, blaming the sastrugi for the trips and the relatively poor traction of the bunny boots for the slips, and not at all any lack of coordination on her part. Lucas easily kept up with her with his longer stride, more at a brisk walk than her slow run.

She shaved several minutes off her normal "commute" time and ran up both flights of the exterior DZ stairs as fast as she dared, entering at the second floor, just down the corridor from Communications. She didn't bother with removing her gear except to rip off the hat and iced-over balaclava and shove them into the pocket of her jacket, even though she knew this would result in a damp yucky mess in her pocket. Lucas followed her, lingering in the doorway, still in his own gear as well. "Hey, I made it," she said, panting. She'd acclimatized to the altitude, but thin air was thin air.

"Fast, too, Foster. Too bad you won't be here at Christmas for the Race Around the World. I told your caller to try back in 15. Any minute now then. The line was kind of noisy, but that's typical. Just press here once when it beeps, it works pretty much like a regular phone," he instructed, pointing to a button on the phone. "You can take it in here for some privacy. I'll go grab a coffee. Give me a shout on the radio when you're done, okay?"

"Okay, thanks a lot, Rodrigo. I appreciate it."

He turned and left the room; Lucas gave her a final glance and followed. She heard Rodrigo say something to him in the corridor but couldn't make out the words. She felt a surge of guilt for how she'd avoided Rodrigo, remembering again how much she liked him and how he'd never been anything but friendly toward her. She felt it particularly keenly today, when the sun would officially set and the station would celebrate with gusto. The sense of excitement in the air was palpable; Jane had felt it at breakfast as fellow Polies were volunteering to get the preparations going bright and early. Jane wasn't part of any of it, having cut herself off almost entirely from the social scene except for the occasional movie night and gym time which she tried to squeeze into the morning – neither of which required much personal interaction.

The sat phone rang. Jane grabbed it and pressed the button, probably a little harder than she needed to. It really did look like a regular phone, just with a big black antenna sticking up from the top at an angle. "Hello?"

"Jane, is that you?" a crackling male voice asked.

"Yes, who's this?"

"This is Thor. You don't recognize my voice? How are you?"

Jane's eyes bulged. "Thor? Really? Is that you? What, do they have satellite phones on…where you're from?" _Stupid, stupid, stupid_. She _knew_ how satellites worked. They didn't send signals to Asgard.

The caller laughed, and even with the noise on the line she would have recognized that warm, rich sound. "We have nothing of the sort. I'm in New York, with Tony Stark. He offered to let me contact you with…the satellite phone. You didn't answer me, how are you?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine. I'm great now that I know nothing's wrong. Wait, nothing's wrong, is it? Why are you with Tony Stark?"

There was a pause, and Jane didn't think it was related to any time delay in the connection, which was pretty good except for some static. "I needed to fill him in on some of the things I told you about before. Let's not discuss it further."

Jane got the message; Thor didn't trust these lines of communication any more than she did. "Are things still calm back home?"

"They are. Tense, but calm. And you? No troublesome visitors?"

She laughed. She knew exactly who he was referring to, but _troublesome_ wasn't the first word to come to mind when she thought of Loki. "No. And there won't be. No visitors at all until the end of October. No way to get them here even if they wanted to come. The research station I'm at closed to all flights over a month ago. I told you, it's extremely remote. Please don't worry about me. I know you have other things to deal with right now."

"Impossible. I'll always worry about you. But I'll worry less now."

"Okay, if that's the best you can do, I'll take it. Oh, hey, Thor, uhhhh…"

"Yes? Did you say something? Your voice isn't very clear."

_Did you ever dress up like a bride to trick some giants into getting your hammer back and then beat them all to death once you did? And by the way, exactly how close are you and this Sif woman?_

"No, sorry. No. I just wish I could see you. We're having our sunset party here tonight. I wish you could be here."

"As do I. The sunsets in such a remote place must be beautiful."

"Oh, well, I don't know how beautiful it'll be, but it only happens once a year, so it's pretty exciting. Ask Tony to explain it, okay? And I hope you get everything straightened out back home quickly. At least by November, when I'm leaving here."

"I'll take it as added encouragement. Jane…I'm sorry, I have to go now. My meeting with Tony lasted longer than I expected."

"I bet it did. I bet that also means it was a good meeting. I…I'm glad you called."

"Thank Tony Stark. I hadn't known it was possible."

"I will," she said, and she would. She wasn't sure what you got for someone who could buy absolutely anything he wanted himself, but she resolved to get creative and express her gratitude for a growing list of favors from Tony, whom she still hadn't even met in person. "Take care of yourself," she said a little awkwardly. She hated goodbyes.

Thor chuckled. "If you insist. And if you do the same. Goodbye, Jane."

"Goodbye," she answered, and another few seconds later the connection terminated. She sagged back against Rodrigo's desk. She hoped he truly would have solved Asgard's problems by the time she left here. It would be a welcome change of pace to have an actual planned visit that didn't involve Thor saying "I have to go." If the tension with Svartalfheim and Jotunheim could be resolved earlier, she wouldn't be all that shocked if he showed up out of the blue at the South Pole. He would be in for quite the rude awakening if he showed up outdoors somewhere around July. Even before things had gone so wrong here Jane had already decided she would probably not participate in the 300 Club, but she could imagine Thor relishing it for the challenge; the idea made her both laugh and blush. And the auroras would be in full swing by then, she realized. She hadn't thought about auroras in weeks. She hadn't thought about much other than work in weeks.

Her thoughts wandered back to her first few days here, to her crisscrossing of the globe, to the excitement and nerves and even the fear when her altitude symptoms didn't immediately abate. Not too long ago she was marshalling a plane with lightsabers and Princess Leia hair, for Pete's sake. She was here for her work; that had never changed. What had changed was _her_. She had traded an adventure for what was essentially an extension of SHIELD's "protective custody" in Norway…just a lot colder.

_What _happened_ to me?_ she asked herself. She was a scientist. She was a bit of a geek, which she was totally fine with. She used to joke with her friends that when you got your PhD you checked your social skills at the door. But she hadn't done that. Well, maybe not everyone would agree with her on that point, but she was pretty sure she hadn't. At least not to this extent, not to become a total loner of her own choosing. She needed friends. She needed people to share this experience with. She needed to _have_ the experiences in the first place. Lucas wasn't enough. He hardly even counted in some ways. Oh, she laughed with him occasionally, chatted about this or that, though not about personal things since he'd told her about changing his name to get away from Dad and his branding iron. He didn't seem to have the slightest interest in the South Pole experience. He cared only about work. Jane needed people around her to remind her _not_ to spend every waking minute working. Like Rodrigo had once, she recalled.

What were the odds that Rodrigo, or John from Materials, or Victor the dining attendant, or Macy from the greenhouse, or anyone else here other than Selby, was here to spy on her? She wasn't that important. And even if they _were_ reporting to SHIELD…let them. She had precisely two secrets from them: Loki's presence on Earth, which Tony probably knew about now, and the extra project that now had her working up to sixteen hours a day, and at which she and Lucas had made tremendous progress in the last couple of weeks. All she had to do was not talk about those two things. Easy. She could allow herself to make friends while still protecting herself, assuming the best about people instead of the worst as she had been doing, which really wasn't like her at all. She was only hurting herself and her own South Pole experience by making herself an outcast here.

The sun was setting tonight, officially at 8:41. It happened once per year, and _that_ happened in only two places in the world. And Jane was living at one of them. Except she hadn't been _living_ at the South Pole. Only working. Work still had to remain her top priority – it was why she was here, she loved it, and she wanted Lucas to get what he needed out of it. But she needed to start living as well. It _would _be nice to have someone to share all this with. It would be nice if that someone could be Thor. Or Erik, or Darcy, or any of her handful of close friends she'd maintained from childhood, college, and grad school. But since it couldn't, then why couldn't it be her fellow winterovers? The thought was still slightly scary, like a first date, she thought, or maybe closer to a second date, when you already knew you _wanted_ to trust the guy but weren't yet quite sure you should.

Thinking about dates made her thoughts come full circle, back to Thor, with whom she hadn't had a _real_ date, not a conventional one anyway. She wished she could hit rewind on her life and experience that night under the Tromso sky with him again. It would be incredible if she could share something like that with him here. Polar auroras and once-a-year sunsets. Laughing with braver souls than she after _they_ sat in a sauna at 200 degrees then streaked out to the Ceremonial Pole in the buff at -100 degrees. The Midwinter gala. She wasn't going to voluntarily miss these unique life experiences out of paranoia and fear and anger. Life was too short. She of all people should know that.

And it would change tonight. Maybe she could see what Rodrigo was up to. Her eyes snapped over to the radio and she jumped off the desk, only now realizing she was sweating big-time standing there in all her gear, her thoughts too inwardly focused to remember to let Rodrigo know she was off the sat phone. She dialed him up and told him she was done, then worked her way out of Big Red for a little relief.

"Hey, so, are you going to the sunset dinner tonight?" she asked as soon as Rodrigo returned and she'd thanked him for the use of the room.

"Are you kidding? Of course," he said, settling in at his desk and taking a quick glance through his monitors. "I'm serving at the first seating. I figure that way if I fall asleep it'll be more likely to be in my own plate instead of while pouring someone else's wine. I don't know if I'll be able to hold up through the party but I'm going to try. At least for a little while. What about you? You better not be bowing out of this, Foster."

"I never even signed up. I don't know what I was thinking."

"Are you serious? I don't know what you were thinking, either. You beakers.* You know what they say about 'all work and no play.'"

Jane wiped a hand over her brow. She was still sweating, wearing too many layers of clothes for indoors. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is it too late? I'd like to volunteer to be a server, too, if I can, even if it's too late to join the dinner."

"I think you can still sign up. They plan for everybody. I think it's pretty much unheard of for anybody not to go. It's not like there's competing social obligations, you know? And it's kind of a big deal here. But you may not have a choice in which seating you get at this point. Macy's managing the servers, she used to wait tables at some fancy-schmancy place and she'll show you how to carry the plates just-so and how to pour without dripping. Call her up on the radio once you know which seating you're available for."

"Okay," Jane said, finding herself ridiculously, deliriously happy at the prospect of learning how to pour without dripping. She couldn't believe she'd ever walked away from all this. And besides, if this whole wormhole generator thing didn't work out and SHIELD found out and SISI dropped her like a hot coal and she was right back to where she started…having an extra employable skill might not be such a bad idea. She'd been pretty much down to her last dime in New Mexico. Oddly enough, the job of independent researcher didn't pay well. "Listen, thanks again. Sorry I've been kind of a jerk lately."

"Don't worry about it. I'm just glad you're snapping out of it, otherwise come toasty August you'll be one scary beaker."

Jane laughed. If she still used Facebook she would have posted that: _I am one scary beaker_. "Okay, well, I'll see you tonight one way or another, I guess."

"Your other half is waiting for you in the galley. _He's_ going to be a scary beaker by June, if not sooner."

"I'll try to work on that," she answered with a grimace and a wave before ducking out.

Lucas, however, wasn't waiting in the galley. He was waiting outside the galley, in the main corridor very close by, and their eyes met as soon as she stepped outside of Communications. As she approached him she realized he was watching her with an intensity he hadn't for some time. "What's up? Is everything okay?" she asked once she'd covered the few steps between them.

"Yes, of course. Is everything…okay…with you?"

"Oh, yeah. Yeah, it wasn't bad news or anything. Just a friend checking in. Hey, I know we didn't talk about it, but I think we should go to the sunset dinner and the party tonight. Remember what I was saying about balance last week? I really need to get a little of that back."

Lucas narrowed his eyes at her and the skin on his face tightened in places. She rarely liked what followed this hardening of his features. "But we were going to-"

"We can still do it. After sunset and before the party."

"Hey, Jane, Lucas," a voice called from behind her. She turned around to see Ken Ryan, the station support supervisor, headed their way. He was carrying oversized rolls of red and yellow streamers.

"Hey, Ken. Is that for the party?" she asked, pointing at the streamers.

"Nah. They're going more with the Christmas lights and disco balls for that. A few of us are decorating the galley."

"Oh yeah? Need any help?"

"Sure, the more the merrier. Come on down, we're about to get started," Ken said, continuing on past and turning into the narrower side corner that led into the galley.

"I thought you wanted to avoid all these people. Now you want to spend your entire day with them?" Lucas asked. It sounded more like an accusation.

She took a deep breath, preparing herself for another argument. They'd still had some tense moments since The Talk, but no more out-and-out arguments. "I need a break, Lucas. I need to…I need to feel _human_ and normal again. I need friends, acquaintances, whatever, just _people_ around me. I try to live my life without regrets, and if I do nothing here all winter but eat, sleep, and work, I'm definitely going to have regrets. If we don't go to this thing we'll be the only two people in the entire station who don't. Look, you can do what you want, but I'm going."

Lucas watched her but said nothing. After a moment she rolled her eyes and walked past him to the sign-up sheet outside the galley. There were 24 names down for the first seating and 24 for the second. Jane turned to ask Lucas which seating he wanted, if in fact he had decided to go, but before she got the words out she turned back to the wall, took the pen from the clipboard, and put her name down for the second seating. She held the pen out to Lucas.

"Jane…who were you on the satellite phone with?"

She blinked back at him a few times. Conversations with Lucas…sometimes interesting, sometimes dry, sometimes funny, sometimes frustrating, sometimes downright annoying, sometimes just plain weird. "I told you. A friend. I have no idea what that has to do with whether or not you're going to sign up for the dinner." She reached for his hand; he snatched it away. She reached for it again and pressed the pen into it. "Do what you want. If you come, wear one of those fancy suits you brought with you," she said, then walked away.

/

* * *

/

Loki watched her back until she disappeared around the corner into the galley. He didn't like being interrupted. He didn't like being ignored. He didn't like people turning their backs on him. Jane had just done all three in the space of a few minutes. He was used to it, though, or had been until it stopped when he became king. He looked down at the pen in his hand and gave a small hard laugh, because actually, he realized, it hadn't stopped even then. Each time it mattered, his commands had been ignored.

He commanded no one and nothing here. Not even Jane. Not even after all the work he'd put into controlling her. One phone call and she was turning back time as if he'd done nothing.

It was only one day – an afternoon and an evening. Let her have her fill of feasting and revelry. He couldn't stop her at this point anyway; he'd already played all his cards. He would consider what she'd said, though. It might be possible to design a new card.

He had no interest in the South Pole's version of a feast – it would probably be an insult to the word, but if Jane was going, then he would go, too. He stepped forward and quickly realized that he could go, but not with Jane. There was only one open slot left, and it was for the first seating while she had just signed up for the second. He drew in a slow breath then exhaled equally slowly. With a clenched jaw he wrote his name, the one on his Canadian passport. Skipping the dinner to work with Jane would make them look like dedicated hard workers, or according to some talk he'd heard, like they worked too much. Skipping the dinner by himself would make him stand out as something very odd.

Loki clipped the pen back to the sign-up sheet and angled his head to the left. _Do what you want_, she'd said, as though he needed her consent for that. He didn't want to decorate the galley. He'd already done enough house mouse duties for a lifetime. He _did_ want to keep an eye on her, especially with this sudden reversal of attitude. But he'd pushed his luck enough today by hovering in the corridor once her phone call was over. She knew him well enough now to know that he wouldn't choose to do whatever it was they were doing with that colored paper. He spun around and backtracked to the DZ entrance to reclaim his gear, put it on, and headed out toward the dark sector as the sun continued its slow spiral, tracing its path around the horizon and sinking ever downward.

/

* * *

/

Loki arrived for dinner in the gray-on-white seersucker suit he'd last worn on the flight from Sydney to Christchurch. He was rather fond of it, casual, comfortable attire one could still look good in, with a dark green tie that meant nothing to anyone else and reminded him that he was the god and these people were the ants. It was casual to _him_, but most of the other men here seemed to think the mere addition of a tie transformed common garments into formal attire, so perhaps to them he may as well have been wearing all his best leathers and gold right up to his helmet.

The women were another story. Most were in gowns of some sort or another – not the long-skirted swirling things of Asgard, but styles that required considerably less fabric. He hadn't seen a woman's legs since New Zealand, and as he found the place setting with his name written on the card at the first of the two long tables, he allowed himself to look. He wasn't the only one looking, he realized with a quick glance around him. He watched as one pair of long legs approached the table and sat across from him – Macy from the greenhouse, he realized once she reached her seat. Shorter legs approached from behind Macy, and as his eyes traveled upward past the bare knees to the fitted black material to the pearl choker at the neck to the face…he blinked heavily, willed his face to betray no reaction.

"Would you like some wine to start off with? I have the Shiraz, but we also have some Malbec floating around and Pinot Grigio if you want white," Jane said, a white cloth draped over her left forearm.

Jane poured first for Macy, wrapping the cloth around the neck of the bottle, filling her glass half-full, and twisting the bottle over the glass with a flourish at the end. No one ever poured alcohol so gracefully in Asgard. And no one ever filled a glass only half-full.

"Lucas?"

"What?" he said, startled, his gaze jumping up from the bottle to her face.

"Wine?"

"No, thank you."

"You sure? Is there something else I can get for you? I can look around. And there's whiskey for later, but I could get you some now, if you want."

His eyebrows went up at the mention of whiskey, but he gathered that Johnnie Walker Blue Label was expensive, and quite likely _not_ what would be served here. Not that it mattered. He wouldn't touch it if an unopened bottle of Blue Label were set down in the middle of his plate. "No. I don't drink alcohol."

"Oh! I'm sorry. Well, something else? We have iced tea. Soda? Hot tea? Water?"

"Water will be fine," he said, feeling everyone's eyes on him. He glanced around as Jane walked back toward the kitchen; he was imagining it. His eyes fell on Jane again. Now that he knew it was her, the legs were no longer distracting. But it made him shudder to think he'd admired them for a moment. Jane was not a woman. She was a means to an end.

Jane filled glasses and brought plates, beginning with a small salad of entirely fresh vegetables and a lobster bisque in a bread bowl with a garnish of some kind of greenery that had never been frozen. The meal, it turned out, was creative and visually pleasing, the best he'd had here, even if that wasn't saying all that much. Macy explained how she'd been cultivating cabbages and tomatoes and cucumbers and various other things specifically for this dinner, and for the first time Lucas could recall he found himself interested in dinner conversation with someone other than Jane. He even asked a few questions.

As the dinner broke up with the approach of the second seating, Austin, sitting two people down from Lucas, asked if he wanted to play darts while they waited for the second seating to finish. He would normally have declined without a second thought, but he really had nothing better to do in the meantime with Jane part of the second seating.

He followed Austin and Wright – no Selby, which Loki couldn't decide was a relief or a disappointment – down the corridor into the Game Room in the B Wing. The room was dominated by its pool table and ping-pong table – he knew what these were now, if not the rules of play – but they walked over to stand near a patch of bare wall, the rest hidden by cabinets and bookshelves and a small refrigerator.

"Five-oh-one?" Austin asked.

Loki stared at the wall, on which hung a flat round object, with numbers marked around the outside and two concentric rings marked in broken red and green and a small red circle inside a green circle in the very center. A target. A smile spread over Loki's face – the quiet smile of a hunter spotting his prey after a very long wait. "Would you mind refreshing me on the rules?" he asked, hoping he wasn't asking the equivalent of _Would you mind showing me how to use a knife and fork?_ "It's been a while since I've played."

Austin explained – while Wright interrupted frequently – the scoring system, the double ring, triple ring, bull, and bull's eye, and then the point, which was to be the first to bring one's score down from 501 to precisely zero. They'd clearly left some things out, probably assuming he knew them already, but it was enough to get the gist, and if Loki could master Earth's astrophysics he was confident he would master this game.

Wright went to one of the cabinets and took out a box from which he withdrew three small blue cylindrical objects reminiscent of tiny arrows, complete with something like a fletching at the end. He handed one to Loki and one to Austin. Loki rolled it in the fingers of his right hand. Very small, very lightweight, not at all the same aerodynamics of an arrow, certainly not of a knife. A plastic shaft with a silver metal tip and barrel. Not a very useful weapon, unless perhaps thrown with a great deal of force at precisely the right spot in the neck, possibly the chest; he doubted it could penetrate the skull. Merely a game then, like something for children to practice with. Children and Midgardian scientists. And him. Loki suppressed a sigh. He might prefer to throw something more substantial at this target, but what he had was this flimsy "dart." It would do.

Austin and Wright had already agreed to determine the order of play with an initial throw, with the highest scorer going first. Wright aimed, probably, for the triple 20 above the bull's eye, but struck low and to the left, receiving only 5 points. Austin aimed for the bull's eye for 50 points and hit the green outer bull for 25. Loki watched them carefully as they threw – their stance, how and where they held the dart, how fast and how far forward they moved their arms when they released it. He rolled his own dart constantly between his fingers and thumb, trying to find the most natural way to grip it. His turn. He took his place on the strip of silver tape on the floor, lifted the dart to somewhere level with his jaw, held it lightly almost as he would a pen. Suddenly a very old memory came back to him; he _had_ actually thrown something like these darts before, during a self-imposed exile on Svartalfheim. But _those_ darts – "fire needles" – burst into flame upon impact. Precision was somewhat less of an issue.

His hand flew forward, the dart launching from it and toward the triple twenty. Loki knew precision in aiming. But he did not know precision in aiming tiny, flimsy plastic darts as opposed to knives and javelins and even axes, with which he was quite good. The dart struck high and to the right of his triple 20 goal for one point. And then it fell to the floor.

"Hey, Lucas, you were supposed to be going for high score, there, not low score," Wright said, stepping up to retrieve the dart from the floor.

"I was merely warming up," he said, giving Wright the hunter's smile. He hadn't been around Wright much without Selby also there, and he realized he found him less tolerable without his colleague. Wright reminded him too much of Thor, even in build, although his chest was rather more like Volstagg's than Thor's.

"I guess talk is all you guys have left since you threw away your pride for a grand total of five points between you," Austin said, making a little _get-out-of-the-way_ waving motion with his hand. Wright handed him his and Loki's darts. He stepped up to the line and threw, this time getting his triple 20. Wright recorded the score, and Austin released a second dart – obviously one of the rules they'd neglected to mention. The game began to make more sense to him. It would be very difficult indeed to sink all three darts into the tiny space for the triple 20, or the bull's eye. He'd wondered why, if triple 20 was the highest that could be scored, one wouldn't simply aim every single dart for that spot until the end, when bringing the score to zero.

Austin walked away with 101 points to take from his 501, and Wright stepped up for 58. Loki watched throughout. He decided to change his strategy and aim first for the bull's eye, even though the triple 20 outscored it; it was a more natural target to begin with. His first throw – gentler than the practice one, as he thought of it – earned 16 points and landed just outside the outer bull, low and to the left. He knew exactly how he'd thrown it; he need only adjust based on the results. The next throw hit the green outer bull, 25 points. On the next throw he overcompensated and missed the bull high and to the right, for just 4 points, 45 in total.

"45 times better than your last throw, I guess that's saying something," Wright said as he noted down the score and subtracted it from 501.

"45 times zero is zero. Where'd you say you got your degree from?" Austin asked.

"Still warming up," Loki said.

Wright and Austin talked and exchanged the occasional mocking insult while Loki watched and adjusted. He scored his first bull's eye, but Austin had scored two more triple 20s and in three more turns he hit zero.

"I would like a rematch," Loki said as soon as Austin retrieved his darts.

"You _were_ starting to look like you could at least give Wright a run for his money there at the end. Yeah, sure, we've got time, Wright?"

Wright agreed and they began again, starting with a single dart to determine order. Loki hit a bull's eye and won the right to go first. On his first turn he got two bull's eyes and a bull – 125 points. He was tempted to move on to the triple 20 but stuck with the bull's eye through two more turns to ensure he was comfortable with his mastery of it. At the end of his third turn, all similar to his first, he realized Wright and Austin had fallen silent and were staring at him. He frowned. So much for his pursuit of perfection. He watched as the other two finished their turns and he worked out his new version of perfection. There was no less challenge in hitting the triple 1 area than the triple 20, and it would appear as though he'd missed his actual target. Besides he was close enough now to zero that he couldn't try for three triple 20's anyway – it would take him below zero and void his score for the turn.

On his fourth turn, he hit a carefully aimed triple 1. Wright let out a laugh. "You were starting to kinda scare me there, Cane. I thought we'd created a monster. And you, you were supposed to find a chump and you got this ESPN wunderkind."

Loki had no idea what an ESPN wunderkind was but it made him smile. Oh, yes, they'd created a dart-throwing monster. Smoothly, gently, he almost _placed_ rather than threw his second dart into the dead center. Of the triple 20. He half-turned to give Wright another predatory grin, this one broader than before. Austin was smiling and nodding in admiration, perhaps appreciating the competition. He decided to aim his third dart for the precise juncture of four specific scoring areas, and find out what the rule was when _that_ happened. But he was off by a hair, and scored a plain 20.

Austin won that round too, but they played a third, in which Loki learned the rule he'd wondered about, in which he scored three triple-20s in a single turn, and in which he won despite some very deliberate, precisely aimed "misses."

"Not bad, Mr. 'I don't remember the rules.' Not bad," Austin said, sticking out his hand to concede defeat.

The gesture still felt odd to him, but he shook it. "I told you I only needed to warm up."

"Yeah, well, next time _I'm_ choosing who plays with us," Wright grumbled. "If we were betting I'd swear you were a ringer."

"If we were betting I would have started out much worse than that," Loki said with a smirk.

"Worse than zero? Come on, let's see if they're done stuffing their gullets yet. I'm ready to be rid of that sun for a while," Wright said, putting the darts back in the cabinet.

They left the Game Room and retraced their steps back to the galley, Loki barely listening as they talked about some movie they had watched recently. His thoughts lingered on Wright's comment about the sun. Jane had said similar things, and he knew she was excited to see the sunset, had been even before she'd suddenly decided she had to go to feasts and parties for it. Loki didn't understand the excitement. It was a sun. It set. Like every other sun he'd ever seen. Some may set more or less frequently than others, but it was just a sun, just a star. He saw no reason to celebrate its disappearance and their imminent descent into darkness.

Jane was standing near the windows along the back wall, talking with Rodrigo. She caught sight of him and a moment later excused herself and hurried over in her moderately high heels. He couldn't understand why women here wore such things. They looked nice but they were hardly practical, and even formal attire, or what counted as such on Midgard, should still retain some practicality. Loki could fight a war in his formal attire. The Asgardian version of formal attire, anyway.

"Where did you go off to?" she asked, her eyes a little brighter than normal.

He wondered if she'd been drinking. "I was throwing darts with Austin and Wright."

"Really?" she asked, her eyes going wide. "Did you have fun?"

"I…yes," he said, and was moderately surprised to realize that yes, in fact, he actually did have fun. Not the most fun of his life, to be sure, but considering the circumstances, it was a remarkable amount of fun. Hurling projectiles at a target, it was hard for that _not_ to be fun. And he'd missed friendly competition. Though considering those men were not his friends and never would be, _friendly_ was perhaps not the best choice of words. _Non-violent_, _possibly_, he thought_. With the illusion of friendliness_. _Yes, an illusion_. Everything about him was, after all, an illusion, from Lucas to Loki to the unwanted Jotun orphan – had he even been given a name before he'd been abandoned? Had those men seen past the illusion, there would have been no friendly competition. But they hadn't. Such illusions, bitter though they made him now, were not always bad things.

Loki and Jane split up to go get their ECW gear on; he wasn't sure what Jane was doing but he decided to keep on the searsucker suit except the jacket and tie, and add the other layers on top. They joined the gathering crowd outside as the minutes ticked down, the sun no more than an orange sliver sitting atop the horizon. When it came to seconds, someone started counting down and others laughed or joined in; Jane did both. Loki observed the surreal scene as though from the outside even though he stood among them. He remembered Barton going over the precise timing necessary for specific stages of their assault on SHIELD's helicarrier. Precise timing was rarely so valued on Asgard.

The sun here did not cooperate. It was using a bit of an illusion, too. The cold atmosphere here increased the sunlight's refraction; he'd heard estimates that it would continue to _look like_ the sun hadn't set for another 36 hours. Most people didn't seem bothered by the fact that they'd stood around outside in the freezing cold staring at the horizon to watch a sun not set.

The crowd dispersed to get ready for the party and some to go to the pre-party concert; Jane would be going to both. But they had other plans first. They exchanged a glance, then headed out to the unused Jamesway they'd moved a few pieces of equipment to and done a little interior redecorating in, detaching and setting aside particle board "walls" to open up a work area and repurposing a small round table as a desk. They'd turned on the heat but kept it low to avoid drawing attention; the temperature inside was just below freezing, warm compared to outdoors and enough to allow them to work and the laptop with external hard drive to do its job recording data.

They had moved the device powered by Stark's arc reactor from the DSL to rest right behind the Jamesway, and wired it up to Jane's work laptop through one of the gaps in the walls. Loki was grateful he was not expected to sleep in one of these buildings, with its lack of real privacy and possibility of indoor snowfall. The device they now called "Pathfinder," but only after nearly a week of mostly passive arguing. Jane had started calling it "the Arc Launcher," but Loki knew its real purpose and disliked the imagery of himself "launching." "Pathfinder" was infinitely more elegant, and appropriate for every stage of its intended use. Jane had insisted the name "Pathfinder" was already in use for at least half a dozen other things. But eventually she tired of the week of _Did you recalibrate the Arc Launcher? Yes, I recalibrated Pathfinder_. She rolled her eyes, muttered under her breath, and gave in. Loki had been pleased with his victory.

The computer was ready to record; Pathfinder was ready to find the path to Yggdrasil. They had added a sturdy metal stand to rest above the arc reactor without disrupting the energy burst. Jane placed the spherical probe on the stand that had been crafted to support it before she'd even come here. She had modified the probe for its new mission, Loki observing intently in case he needed to make his own modifications that she would never know about. She straightened up and looked at him, eyebrows raised. "You want to do the honors?" she asked.

It should have been more climactic. Something to compare to a gleaming stern Heimdall plunging his enchanted sword into place. It was just a button. Loki pressed it.

There was a five-second delay, enough time to take several steps back, just in case.

The probe exploded. Its structural integrity field flared so brightly Loki instinctively closed his eyes. Then with a snap of energy the field dissipated and glittering microscopic bits of metal floated to the ground.

Loki swallowed hard.

"That could have gone better," Jane said. They stared at Pathfinder for a moment. "I'll just go check the sensor log," she said, and Loki followed her back inside.

She found a wobble in the energy field and made a slight alteration in one of her equations to account for it. She took another probe and they went back out to try again. She had insisted on "managing his expectations" throughout the week, once they'd gotten access to the data from the failed event and begun working toward this moment in earnest. Loki didn't want his expectations managed. He wanted them met. Nothing more, nothing less.

They repeated the process. Probe on its stand. Press the button. Five-second delay. Step back. Wait.

There was a flash of bright blue energy, similar enough to the explosion half an hour earlier that Loki sighed and presumed failure.

"It's gone. It worked," Jane said from his left.

He looked more closely; she was right. No sparkling remains of a probe. No sign a probe had ever rested on the stand. It had happened so fast it hadn't even been visible. He turned to look at Jane, who was grinning up at him. She stuck out her gloved hand and he accepted it, but she squeezed rather than shook.

"Come on," she said.

He nodded. She squeezed his hand again and turned around to head back into the Jamesway, letting go of him only when he similarly turned to join her.

Back inside, Jane was nearly shaking with energy and excitement. She checked the laptop; raw data was streaming in. "How am I ever going to sleep tonight?" she asked, but Loki figured she wasn't actually asking _him_. "Let's go to the party," she said, turning to face him.

"I'm not going to the party."

"We can't do anything with this yet. There's no point staying out here. Everyone will be there. It'll be fun, come on."

"I'm not going to the party."

"Yes, you are. You're coming with me."

"No, Jane, I'm not."

"I can stand here and do this all night."

"As can I. While _Pathfinder_ feeds us data."

"I'm not budging on this one," she said with a huff.

Loki stared down hard at her, but she didn't appear intimidated in the slightest. And she looked like she really wasn't going to budge, either. He could walk away, but that would likely make her angry, when right now she felt badly for the suffering Lucas had endured and she wanted to help him. "How long would you require me to remain at this party?" he asked with narrowed eyes.

She narrowed hers right back, which amused him, though of course he didn't show it. "Thirty minutes."

"Five."

"Five? Give me a break. Twenty."

"Ten."

"Fifteen."

"Fine."

"Luc- Oh. Okay, good. Deal. Let's go back to the station. We have something to celebrate."

* * *

/

*Couple of real-life South Pole notes: 1. "Beaker" is South Pole slang for a scientist. 2. 300 Club - yup. Google it, you'll see some striking pictures.

_I meant to say on the last chapter, I've gone ahead and put up _Magic & Mead_, the story that started life as a flashback with no particular home...not the best way to go about things. So I figured I'd share it. You certainly don't need to read it to make anything in _Beneath_ work, but it's the same characters in the same universe (well, not Jane, she wasn't born yet!), so you might enjoy it. You'll find in this story the "real story" (vice Loki's manipulated nightmare version of it a few chapters back) of Loki getting drunk when he was 14. It's a much simpler, much shorter story, taking place when Loki's 14 and Thor's 15. You can find it from my profile page if you're interested. As of 12/30/12 it's about 95% done, I just have to type it up from the notebook it was written in._

_As for *this* chapter, I hope you enjoyed it. Loki & Jane have really settled into a routine, but it's a routine Jane has realized she's not satisfied with. Loki, on the other hand, was quite satisfied with it, and he's really being pushed out of it now. And I've wanted to get the darts thing in for a long time, I figured it would be something he'd have a natural affinity for and I haven't seen it done elsewhere - this was the first time it made sense to me that Loki might actually say yes._

_Teasers for "Chapter 27: Fun" (yes, "fun"): bickering, bantering, reflections on fun, actual fun, non-fun for Loki (or is it?) and Thor._

_And excerpt:_

"Hey, uh, Lucas, I'm sorry if I pushed you too hard last night. I didn't mean to be…uh…I just wanted you to have a good time, you know?"

The laugh went a little further this time. "Dr. Foster, you'll know it if you've pushed me too hard."

Jane smiled weakly. Because that _definitely _sounded creepy.

_[And is that foreshadowing? Why yes, indeed it is.]_

_Thanks for reading, thanks for reviewing, thanks also to Guests to whom I could not respond, I love hearing from you too!  
_


	28. (27) Fun

_This chapter is more about what is fun and what is not, you might say, though there is some actual fun itself here and there..._

_BTW, in case you don't happen to have a Word doc keeping track of dates and such (like me!), it has been about a week since King Gullveig's two-week deadline._

/

* * *

**Beneath**

**Chapter Twenty-Seven – Fun**

The walk back to the station, shorter than normal because the jamesways were much closer than any of the dark sector facilities, consisted of Jane trying to convince Lucas to go to the pre-party concert as well.

"Don't get used to this," he told her when he finally agreed.

"You got to name Pathfinder, so it's only fair."

"Fair," he repeated with a dark chuckle, muffled but audible underneath the balaclava. "You're far too naïve if you're still concerned with what's fair."

"Oh, relax, Lucas, honestly. We've just had a major success, the sun has set, we had good food with lots of freshies, now there's a concert and a party. It's okay to just let yourself go once in a while and have fun, you know."

"I'm not here to have fun."

Jane rolled her eyes and was glad Lucas couldn't see it. "I know, I know, I know. Enough with that already. Besides, you've already broken the 'Lucas-Cane-Does-Not-Have-Fun' rule today. You said you had fun playing darts."

They had reached the station, closing the thick metal door behind them and pushing through the dangling strips of plastic that always made Jane feel as though she were coming and going from a meat locker. Lucas had already removed his hat, goggles, and balaclava, and was shaking the melting ice from the latter. "I agreed to go to these events. I did not agree to enjoy it."

"Whatever," Jane said, tugging off her own gear, uncertain whether he was serious or going for dry humor…but she would have bet on serious this time. _She_ was going to have fun tonight, and she was going to do her best to see that Lucas did, too. "You know, bad stuff is a part of life sometimes, Lucas. It's up to you how you react. You don't have to let it destroy you."

He started to respond, but Jane flashed him a smile and turned to go, calling "See you at the concert" over her shoulder.

/

* * *

/

_Bad stuff_. The reduction of a thousand years of rejection and failure and lies and second-best-on-a-good-day to those two words was almost vulgar. _Bad stuff._

"_Don't go wandering around at night, the Frost Giants are free to roam once everyone goes to bed,"_ Loki remembered one of their nursemaids telling him and Thor when they were very young and had decided to sneak out of their room one night just to see if they could, and had gotten caught. Loki no longer remembered, but suspected it was Thor's idea, actually. Thor had slept with a wooden sword hidden under his pillow for a while after that, and Loki had wet the bed a couple of times because he was too afraid to get up and go to the bathroom. And Thor had of course ridiculed him for it. Later, when he'd been ten and had his own chambers, an older youth's story had so affected him he was certain a Frost Giant hid under his bed at night, and if he let his feet dangle over the edge they would be bitten off and the rest of him encased in ice alive but unable to move for all eternity. He lived in fear of turning in his sleep and inadvertently letting a leg hang over the edge even though part of him knew it couldn't be true. Little had he known the Frost Giant was in his very own bed the whole time. In his very own skin, hiding, but always there, whether night or day. He wondered what Thor would have done, had _he _known. _"I'll hunt the monsters down and slay them all!"_ his brother had proudly declared to their father – his father, after being shown the Ice Casket and hearing the story of the Ice War. While standing right next to one of the monsters. The monster Odin had taken. And if somehow he _weren't _a monster, shouldn't Odin have said so, right in that moment? _"Thor, don't say such things. Frost Giants aren't monsters. They're just like us. They're very nice, once you get to know them."_ Loki laughed out loud, alone in his room now, shrugging out of his heavy black overalls. He'd said something about both of them being born to be kings instead. So Odin had meant to install him on the throne of Jotunheim, a tamed and submissive monster? What a wonderful fate _that_ would have been. He hadn't had any idea what it meant at the time, but it had sounded grand and exciting and he hadn't particularly questioned it, like everything else Odin had told him in his childhood and youth.

_Bad stuff._

He had watched his younger brother struggle to breathe his last breaths, watched blood seep from his wound, watched him grow still, watched all eyes turn toward _him_, understood that life as he knew it had just ended as well. "_Please, just go. I can't see you right now, Loki."_ Even his mother, who always had a kind word, a warm hug, a hand to wipe away a child's tear, had rejected him.

_Bad stuff._

"_No, Loki._"

"_Don't let it destroy you."_

In a way, it was far, far too late for such patronizing advice. Loki had been destroyed virtually the moment he was born, a physically inadequate specimen of his kind, left to die and then "rescued" by his enemy to become a pawn in a game that Odin had apparently lost interest in somewhere along the way. Was it better to be a forgotten, useless pawn than a pawn actually put to use?

In another way, though, he had already adopted and adapted that philosophy, more than Jane would probably ever know. He had let himself be destroyed, when he released his grip on Gungnir at the broken bifrost. He hadn't desired death so much as he no longer desired life. And when death did not come, when he had a chance to forge a new destiny completely apart from his existence as a forgotten pawn, to prove he was so much more than they'd ever believed him to be, he'd seized onto life with a new zeal. He was alive. He was Loki. He was the king of Asgard. If he could not have that, he would rule Midgard. And if he could not rule, he would destroy. But he would never _be_ _destroyed_.

Of course, what _Jane_ had meant by it, as best he could understand, was that he should have fun tonight. That he should not sulk because his father had caused him a few seconds of pain on his wrist.

Loki considered it, genuinely considered it, for a moment at least. _"Let yourself go and have fun."_ He tried to recall the last time he had truly "let himself go and had fun." Fun in the way he suspected Jane would define it. Signaling an aircraft where to land while wearing your hair in some odd style. Playing simplistic songs badly on a piano. Flying along over ridged snow in a snowmobile. It was difficult. And painful. How many centuries had passed while he barely noticed as his resentment grew and he faded more and more into the background? He hadn't truly realized just how angry he'd become until he'd unleashed it all on Odin that fateful day in the Weapons Vault. It had felt good to let it out, euphoric even, in its own way. For a moment. Then came the guilt. The weakness. He resolved to never feel guilt again.

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to almost physically tamp down the anger that welled up in him anew just thinking about that day. _Fun_. He'd been trying to think of fun. The incongruity of the thought made him laugh again. This was his "fun." These were the things that made him laugh. Everything in him had become so dark. Or else it had been that way all along and he'd only discovered the full truth of it in the Weapons Vault.

Loki had always been drawn to chaos; that was certainly nothing new. He was endlessly curious and had been since childhood, delighting in the unpredictability and commotion in the world at large around him. The things he found fun were often tied to chaos, more so as he grew older and more and more of the simpler joys in life were eroded. Fear in particular often led to chaos, and Loki had found he enjoyed inspiring both.

He'd told Jane he had fun throwing darts. It hadn't been a lie. But it wasn't quite what Jane thought it was, either. Loki took pleasure in the win and in his own clear superiority in a way he knew Jane would frown on. Some strange part of him, perhaps a child who had never grown up, might have liked for it to be something different, true companionship, true friendship, like what he had experienced for a few moments with Mohsin and his friends at the hockey game in Melfort, but the greater part of him knew that those things could never be his and scoffed at the child inside who naively longed for it. He had changed, perhaps not into a better person, but into a purer person, someone who knew who he was as he never had before. He had grown beyond such things.

He wondered if Mohsin's family had been able to join him yet…

The random memories of loquacious Mohsin and the group of friends he'd been so easily permitted into – angering him because he should have been ruling over them and not sitting anonymously among them, but also pleasing him in some small way, he realized now with disgust – took him back some forty years earlier to an adventure on Alfheim. The bifrost had deposited him, Thor, and Volstagg on one coast of a large forested island and Hogun, Fandral, and Sif on the opposite coast; the two groups were then to compete to find a lake in the island's center. The first group to scale the cliffs of the tiny island in the middle of the lake and stand among the painted stone ruins of a mysterious ancient building there would be declared the winner and would have to cook for the others for the next five years' worth of adventures. The island had long ago been abandoned to an aggressive band of trolls, but as part of the adventure they'd agreed no one was permitted to bring a weapon. In the spirit of being fair, Loki had promised he would not use magic, either.

He'd lied, naturally. He used magic from the very beginning to ensure the grouping he preferred – on a sliding scale of his ability to tolerate Thor's friends Volstagg fell at the top, usually, and Sif fell off the bottom, nearly always. Then, when he found he was genuinely enjoying the adventure and the company was actually more than tolerable, he'd used magic to obscure the terrain with illusions, sending his group in circles through the forest. He still preferred winning to losing, though, so at night, after they'd eaten and told stories and sung old war songs over a campfire and Thor and Volstagg were snoring in the hammocks they built from local trees, he slipped over the treetops and similarly obscured the terrain for the opposing team. He'd even lied about not carrying a weapon, retaining his emergency knife, looped into his tunic by a thread from its hem and crafted from the same metal as his armor, making it impossible to detect. A four- or five-day adventure turned into a ten-day quest with unexpectedly challenging navigation. It was fair in the end, more or less. He may have created a few more obstacles for his opponents than for his own group. But Thor was a terrible field cook and Loki was not much better, and very little made it out of a pan tended to by Volstagg. He was doing them all a favor.

_That_ had been fun. Thor had felt like his brother of old and Loki almost like his equal, something that had become rarer and rarer, and Volstagg's jibes were aimed evenly at both. They had gelled nicely as a team. He was hard-pressed to think of anything since. Anything that Jane would see the truth of and agree to call fun.

He took a deep breath and examined himself in the mirror. He was procrastinating now; Jane would be waiting for him. The seersucker slacks and vest had held up well, despite being crushed under the Carhartts. The white shirt was a bit wrinkled. He lifted a hand, paused to consider, then ran it over his shirt, satisfied that removing wrinkles would fall under the not-mischief category. He straightened his green silk tie, added the jacket that matched the slacks, slid his feet into the white bucks, and ran a simple straight comb through his hair. Not at all the impressive ensemble he'd put together for his grand entry among Stuttgart's wealthy and powerful, but it would do for this little gathering of people stupidly celebrating the loss of a sun still visible on the horizon.

/

* * *

/

Just when Jane was about to give up and assume Lucas had reneged on their agreement and wouldn't show, he appeared in the galley, where the tables had been rearranged again into small groupings of chairs, an area for the band, and a clear path to the makeshift bar where Scotch and leftover wine from dinner were up for grabs. Jane was nursing a glass of Malbec. She'd sought out Rodrigo upon arriving, feeling more comfortable with him than any of the others at this point, and saved a seat for Lucas. She waved him over once he spotted her.

"They're doing some weird mixture of 60's, 70's, and 80's, a little bit of more recent stuff," Jane told him once he slid into his seat. Austin, Carlo, Wright, Jeff, and Selby were on the chorus of The Moody Blues' "Steppin' in a Slide Zone." As far as Jane could tell, every song they'd played had something to do with the event at hand, this one rather tenuous. Jane's mother had loved The Moody Blues but she could remember her father saying this song was about drugs. He said that about a lot of songs, though, she remembered with a laugh. Lucas looked at her questioningly but she waved him off; it wasn't worth trying to explain over the music.

The song came to an end and a familiar keyboard tune started up. Jane laughed again. "Invisible Sun," she said, nudging Lucas's arm. He nodded and smiled politely. "The Police," she added.

"What?"

"Never mind." Jane took a sip of wine, and then gave Lucas a quick glance. "Hey, um, is this okay?" she asked, lifting her glass for a second. "If it bothers you I can-"

"It doesn't bother me."

"You're sure? I really don't mind putting it aside."

"It doesn't bother me. I choose not to drink alcohol because it dulls the senses. I only drink it on the rare occasion when that is my express intention," he explained, keeping his eyes on the band.

"Um, okay," Jane said, trying to convey more certainty than she felt. At least she knew she wasn't creating temptation for someone dealing with addiction. Or she thought she knew. His answer was kind of strange and maybe not all that definitive. She looked down at her glass of Malbec. She didn't particularly want it to dull her senses, or the glass she'd had with dinner. She simply enjoyed the occasional glass of red wine. _And it's good for your heart_, she thought with a small thread of childish defensiveness. She knew she'd heard that somewhere. Right next to the article that said a piece of dark chocolate a day kept the doctor away.

She chatted a bit with Rodrigo, whose eyes really started drooping with the slower "Away from the Sun" by 3 Doors Down. He assured her he was going to stick it out for a least a little while at the party, which was starting soon.

Lucas remained incredibly reserved, showing little interest in the songs and never singing along like several of the others were. Jane sighed, wondering how to make someone have fun, or if it were even possible.

"Okay, that concludes our set for the night," Austin announced after another number. He did most of the singing, sometimes with Wright or Jeff or both. "We'll take a couple of requests though. Give us some fun stuff, give us a challenge. Any decade, any century even. Carlo and Selby can do classical if you really want to get funky."

"Yeah, don't put too much effort into the challenge thing," Wright threw in.

"Spice Girls!" someone called out, gaining a smattering of laughter, boos, and cheers.

They got through a chorus of "Wannabe," Wright starting out in tortuous falsetto, Carlo just standing and shaking his head.

Jane got an idea. "Watch this," she whispered, elbowing Lucas again.

"Secret Agent Man!" she called as soon as the notes started to fade. Selby's eyes met hers and he looked away immediately.

They conferred for a moment; Wright was nodding his head, and strummed out the opening riff for Carlo, who wasn't sure he knew the song, but nodded once he heard the riff. Wright took singing duty on this one, too, and hammed it up with the lyrics from the Johnny Rivers song:

"There's a man who leads a life of danger.  
To everyone he meets he stays a stranger.  
With every move he makes, another chance he takes.  
Odds are he won't live to see tomorrow.

Secret agent man…

Beware of pretty faces that you find.  
A pretty face can hide an evil mind.  
Oh, be careful what you say. You'll give yourself away.  
Odds are you won't live to see tomorrow."

"You're trying to provoke him," Lucas whispered during the second chorus.

Jane gave a shrug and a pseudo-innocent smile. "It's just a song." Lucas was smiling, and not that false proper "I'm on my best behavior" smile, but something that seemed a little more genuine and reached his eyes. Maybe she could get him to have fun tonight after all. Maybe not the _nicest_ way to go about it, she granted, but Selby had certainly earned a moment or two of discomfort, which actually he was handling quite well, though he wasn't getting as into the song as his bandmates. Maybe he would even own up to what he was really here for now that it was painfully clear she knew exactly who he was, if he'd somehow managed to not figure that out already.

/

* * *

/

"Bold choice, by the way," Jane said as they entered the gym, converted into a dance floor, with a refreshment table set up, a few disco balls hanging from the ceiling, multi-colored Christmas lights strung all around, and a table with speakers hooked up to an I-Pod quietly playing 80's music, until the decision was made to switch over to a playlist with more recent club music.

"The decorations?" Lucas asked, glancing at his watch.

"Your outfit." Some people had changed; she was back in her staple "little black dress" – she didn't have much else in the way of formal wear – and Lucas was back in his "I'm richer than you are" outfit. Well, that was a little unnecessarily unkind.

"What's wrong with it? I like it."

"Well, I would think that someone of your station would know that _that_, my friend," she said, pointing at his jacket, "is summerwear. And even _I_ know you aren't supposed to wear white shoes past…which is it, Labor Day or Memorial Day? Labor Day. Assuming you have that in Canada." She'd learned about seersucker only after searching around online a few weeks ago to figure out exactly what that thing was he'd worn on the flight to Christchurch. No man in her life had ever dressed like that, not even her MD ex. Contrary to popular belief, doctors weren't all filthy rich. Don had been drowning under a mountain of debt from med school. And single income physics professors hardly fared better.

"Lucky for me I'm not terribly concerned with following rules."

"I wish I could say I didn't believe you," Jane said, raising her voice as the volume on the music jumped, shifting into the dance mix with "I Gotta Feeling."

"You know me too well, Jane."

"I love this song. It always puts me in a good mood. Come on, let's dance." She started to move into the center of the room where a few people, more women than men, had started dancing.

"Is that what you call that?" he asked sarcastically. "You obviously don't know me as well as I thought."

"Don't be such a sourpuss."

"Shall I remind you of the terms of our agreement?"

"I remember. Fifteen minutes. And you added the 'I absolutely refuse to have fun' clause." Jane tried a little longer to needle him into joining her but he steadfastly refused. As The Black Eyed Peas wound down she gave up and went out onto the dance floor, joining the small group Rodrigo was dancing with. Every time she looked back at Lucas, always with a smile that said as best she could "Come join us," he was watching her. Not in an "I'm interested" kind of way, she didn't think, which was a good thing since that was a complication she definitely didn't need, but watching all the same. If she hadn't already known him for over a month and a half she'd think it was kind of creepy, but…well, he was Lucas, and some things just went with the territory.

A couple of songs later when he caught her eye he was holding up his wrist and tapping his pointer finger against his watch. He gave a little wave and left. But he was smiling. Maybe in his own way he'd had fun.

/

* * *

/

"I don't need you at the meeting with the full council, Thor, but I want you at the meeting with Tyr before it. He has completed his survey of the records of the Vanir-Aesir War, the Ice War, and the smaller conflicts with Svartalfheim, and he has some recommendations prepared for us. Mordi's son and daughters will be there. Bring the Warriors Three as well. We must have strategies prepared for every type of warfare we may encounter. Much of this will fall to you, but you'll need guidance."

Thor nodded, for he could not bring himself to speak. He wanted to fight beside his father, he wanted it to be just as he'd imagined it would be ever since he was a little boy, all his life. But his father was old, and the degree of power he possessed and controlled now required recompense in the form of the Odinsleep. If Odin took Gungnir onto the battlefield the need for the Sleep would be hastened, a risk that Odin hoped to avoid. For now, the plan was that Odin would remain in the role of peacemaker for as long as possible, while Thor would prepare Asgard's warriors for battle.

Battle against any form of beast, any form of weapon, any form of magic, from any and all of seven realms. When Thor had imagined such battles, they had been magnificent tests of strength and endurance and self-confidence, the types of tests he had always excelled in. He had never imagined poring over 3,000-year-old scrolls to analyze enemy tactics that even the enemy probably no longer remembered, or trying to coordinate and plan command-and-control for distinct masses of warriors. His frustration and impatience were growing. He _knew_ that this impending war was best avoided, for if the other realms joined together for a full-on assault Asgard's defenders would be vastly outnumbered and every citizen would know hardship. But with each passing day he grew more accepting of what his father had tried to tell him – that the All-Father was not All-Powerful, and he may not find the right words to convince the leaders of the other realms to relinquish their claims. Thor tired of diplomacy that went nowhere and threats from realms that had no business questioning Asgard's intentions. And as the sense of inevitability grew, so too did a desire to put Mjolnir to work in providing the kind of response such threats cried out for.

"It's a shame we lost Mordi himself," Frigga was saying as the three took breakfast in the family's private dining room on the top floor of the palace. Mordi had been Asgard's most powerful master of magic until his demise, nearly thirty years earlier.

"Loki's magic would probably prove useful," Thor put in, without really thinking about it before he said it.

"Loki's presence would be the worst liability. And we couldn't trust him to act on Asgard's behalf right now anyway. Don't dwell in the past, Thor. There's no time for that now."

Thor swallowed a bite of bread, thick with butter and honey, over a tight throat. He was angry, he was sad, he yearned for battle, he yearned for peace, he hoped Tony found Loki soon, he hoped Tony never found Loki and his brother would remain hidden – and safe – from this threat as long as it lasted. He glanced over at his mother; her hands were in her lap, her lips were pursed, and her eyes were cast downward and shining with moisture, though no tears fell. He remembered something he'd meant to ask her.

"Mother, the gem you gave Loki…"

"Yes?" she said, her gaze snapping up toward his.

"Does it have any…unusual energies? Anything detectable?"

She kept her eyes fixed firmly on his. "Why do you ask?"

"My friend on Midgard said it would be easier to find Loki if there were something distinctive about the necklace you gave him, something he could search for, instead of searching for Loki himself."

Frigga took in a deep breath and nodded, but it was Odin who answered. "The enchantment on that gem is a very simple one. I had it commissioned from a craftsman from Central Market and I watched him inlay the magic myself. It emits only low-level energies. I doubt it works at all from as far away as Midgard."

"It still says what I meant it to say," Frigga said with a sharp look at Odin.

"Of course it does. It was a thoughtful gift," Odin said, trying to placate his wife. _This_ Thor had seen before, but usually in considerably less serious circumstances.

"Yes, it was," Frigga said, her expression softening.

And then Thor felt like he was intruding. And he was, really, for his parents usually took breakfast alone, just the two of them. He wiped his napkin quickly over his mouth and threw it down on the table. "I'd better go round up my friends if I'm going to get them to the meeting with Tyr."

Odin nodded his dismissal and he escaped. After meeting Tyr Odin would update the rest of the council and they him, while Thor took Tyr's recommendations out to the warriors to begin training to implement them, and hopefully release some of his excessive supply of pent-up energy. Later that afternoon Odin would travel to Alfheim. Thor no longer expected his father to return announcing there would be no war.

/

* * *

/

The pounding seemed to have been going on for a long time before Jane finally processed it and opened her eyes. She was just starting to sit up in bed when the door opened and Lucas stuck his head inside.

"What are you doing? Get out!" she shouted. She meant to shout, anyway. It didn't come out all that loud.

"When you didn't answer I was concerned that-"

"I didn't answer because I was _sleeping_. Now out, out!"

He frowned, took the half-step out that he'd taken in, and closed the door.

Jane groaned and ran her fingers through her long brown static-y hair. It wasn't like she was insufficiently dressed or anything, but people weren't supposed to just barge into your room unannounced and uninvited. The absence of a lock did not constitute an invitation to enter at leisure. Her alarm clock read 6:33 in bright red lines. _Not fair. Not fair at all._ She sat there for a couple more minutes, debating through a foggy brain and a headache whether she should get up or roll over and try to go back to sleep. She thought about Lucas and his chipper morning-person self. He was probably standing right outside her door waiting. She would have laid money on it.

She jumped down to her stool, grabbed her robe from the back of her desk chair and threw it on, then marched over to the door and yanked it open.

"Good morning," Lucas said.

She closed the door again. She let her eyelids droop into the position they longed for and her mouth curl up in an expression her mother used to warn her would freeze there if she kept it up. Then she remembered he'd had something in his hands. Maybe it was a double espresso. She opened the door.

He hesitated a moment. "Shall I say it again or does the first time count?"

"What is that?" she asked, pointing at the napkin bundle he held in his right hand. She was pretty certain it wasn't coffee.

He held it out to her. "Toast."

She wrinkled her nose in confusion.

"You…look like you don't feel well. I thought it might help. You have water? I can get you some if not."

"I, uh, yeah, I have water," she said, glancing over her shoulder at her desk where her water bottle sat. She accepted the toast-bearing napkin and opened it. Just dry toast, no butter, no jelly. _Yum._

"I apologize for entering before. As I was trying to explain, I was concerned when you overslept, and when you didn't respond when I knocked. I'm glad to see you're all right."

Jane shook her head. "Overslept? It's 6:30 in the morning, Lucas. By what definition is that oversleeping?"

"By yours. You get up at 5:45 every morning."

"How do you know that?"

"I live two doors down from you, Jane. I know what time you get up."

She shook her head again. She didn't know what time _he_ got up; she'd never even thought about it. But what did any of this matter? Why was he banging on her door and handing her dry toast? It would be easier to think if her head didn't hurt. And then it clicked. "You thought I was sick from a hangover? I'm not hung over, I just didn't get back to my room until two in the morning. I'm tired." She felt a stinging on her upper lip and brushed the back of her hand against it; it came away with a small red smudge. _Great_. She'd been so tired when she came back she'd skipped her usual Chapstick-and-lotion regimen and she'd forgotten to turn on the humidifier. She was lucky her hands weren't bleeding. She'd have to inspect the spaces between her toes later, and blowing her nose would probably be a bad idea at the moment.

Meanwhile Lucas was still standing there, just outside her door, while she stood there, just inside it. "I guess you may as well come on in," she said, opening the door the rest of the way. He was already in his Carhartts, and Jane couldn't help thinking they really didn't look right on him. Maybe it was just because she'd spent so much of the night before seeing him in seersucker and a coat and vest and tie. She would probably look strange in big black ECW work overalls right now, too.

She felt a strong sense of déjà vu as she sat on her worn sheet-covered chair near the window and he sat at her desk. But that time had been better; he'd actually brought her an espresso then. She picked at the toast and tried to tell herself _it's the thought that counts_.

"Did you have fun at the party?" Lucas asked after she'd taken a bite of the toast. He handed her the water bottle and she took it, taking a long drink before answering.

"Yeah, I did. Did you? The whole fifteen minutes you were there?"

"If you're attempting to make me feel guilty, I can assure you you'll fail. I did exactly what I said I would do."

Jane swallowed another bite of bread. "You didn't answer my question."

He exhaled sharply over upturned lips, something approaching but not quite making it to a laugh. He turned away from her and his eyes roamed over her desk. "I've had worse fifteen minutes. It was…interesting…to see another side of you."

"That was the side of me having fun. I wish you would've given it a try. Did you _see_ some of those people, Lucas? A couple of them have _kids_ too old for that music. But they were still getting out there and enjoying themselves. You can't be _that_ bad of a dancer."

Lucas ignored her, not that she was surprised. "What's this?" he asked, pointing to something on her desk she couldn't see.

Jane leaned forward to see which one he was pointing to; she had several things taped up there. Things that reminded her of the people she loved, things that cheered her up. This one showed a little yellow duckling in the process of shaking dozens of tiny water droplets from its dry brown-and-yellow fuzz. "Oh. My friend in Australia e-mailed me that. 'Water off a duck's back,' you know?"

But he looked at her like he didn't.

"Kind of like…don't let your problems stick to you? Don't let things get to you. What, you don't have that saying in Canada?" she asked with a raised eyebrow. As if. She probably shouldn't have said anything, but he probably shouldn't have barged into her room without her permission and woken her up, either.

"Of course I know the saying. But there was no context. And I didn't grow up in Canada. I was born there but we moved around. I'm sure I missed out on a great many cultural triumphs. Such as Spice Girls."

Jane laughed despite her intention to remain annoyed. That explained a lot. "Where did you live that you missed _that_?"

"And this one. I like it."

She leaned forward again. He was pointing to the Tennyson quote she'd printed out and taped up above her laptop for ever-present encouragement: _To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield._ She told him about her hike to Ob Hill back when they were at McMurdo, the cross on which the quote was written, and what it signified. "You should've come with us," she finished.

"You didn't really want me to. You still suspected I worked for the enemy at the time."

"Enemy? That's a little strong," she said with a laugh, because what he'd said was kind of true, and then another string of words started flying through her head that might describe SHIELD better, but none of them were terribly polite. She suddenly recalled that Lucas had at one point said something about wanting to "destroy" them. She'd had other things on her mind at the time and hadn't thought much about it, but apparently he hated them more than she did even though he'd had much less interaction with them, or at least he hated them in different way. It made a certain amount of sense, though. After what his father had put him through she could imagine he wouldn't respond well to someone trying to push him around. Like she had last night. _Oops._

"Hey, uh, Lucas, I'm sorry if I pushed you too hard last night. I didn't mean to be…uh…I just wanted you to have a good time, you know?"

The laugh went a little further this time. "Dr. Foster, you'll know it if you've pushed me too hard."

Jane smiled weakly. Because that _definitely _sounded creepy.

He laughed again, and she knew he'd caught her reaction. "My apologies. Merely a jest. I agreed to go to that party last night, and I went. I'll admit I was mildly curious about it. If I were truly unwilling to go, I wouldn't have gone. Perhaps we can discuss other things now?" He continued after her tentative nod. "I'm anxious to have a good time this morning. There is the little matter of a probe we launched last night."

Jane's eyes flew open wide. Of course there was! How could she have forgotten? Lucas didn't show up in her room at ungodly hours to chat about parties. He showed up because he wanted her to come out and get to work. Maybe a leopard couldn't change his spots, as the expression went. If so, that was okay. She'd met worse leopards. She could put up with this one's spots. After all, some of hers looked pretty similar.

"Give me ten minutes," she said with a nod. "And Lucas?"

"Yes?" he said, already standing.

"Don't ever come into my room again without permission, okay?"

He looked angry for a moment, and she remembered he'd done it because he was worried…but still. The look faded and he dipped his head down and a bit to the side, lowering his eyes. She wasn't sure exactly what it meant, but it better have meant something along the lines of _It will never happen again._ Then he left, and Jane flew into motion.

* * *

/

_Thor & Loki & pals' Alfheim adventure locale is sorta-kinda modeled on Slovenia's Lake Bled. Church on a small island in the middle of a lake, very quaint. No trolls. That I know of._

_Teasers for "Chapter 27: Yggdrasil": Jane comes to a realization that changes a few things (no, not Lucas's identity, I don't want to be cruel - but that is not far off now); Loki waxes philosophical about microwaves but Jane isn't impressed; Jane takes a look at a few more pages in that book Darcy sent her on Norse mythology and finds the good, the bad, and the utterly baffling; Odin has an idea that Thor doesn't like._

_And the teaser (this follows Jane having looked at the book):_

And Loki…it fit with what Darcy had told her. It seemed almost like there were two Lokis. Cutting off someone's hair sounded like a mean prank – it wasn't exactly on par with trying to destroy or subjugate entire planets. Sleeping with your brother's wife – if it were true – that was what you might call stepping it up a notch.

She tried to picture Loki cutting off Sif's hair – because no way was she going to try to picture the _other_ story – and found she could not. It was simply too far from what she knew of him, she supposed. It was also giving her a headache.

_So, I chose this one because if you're reading quickly in the next chapter it may not jump out at you, but it's sort of significant. Jane's wrong about why she can't picture Loki cutting off Sif's hair. Little things like this have been hinted at a couple of times but it's fairly blatant here._


	29. (28) Yggdrasil

**Beneath**

**Chapter Twenty-Eight – Yggdrasil**

"Look at this gravitational field!" Jane exclaimed, pointing to a series of graphs.

They had been huddled in the jamesway for well over an hour, side-by-side, wading through data returned from the probe Jane had designed back in New Mexico with the assistance of SHIELD's engineers, materials, and technology, as she'd explained to Loki. She seemed to be experiencing a wave of guilt over using it for a purpose other than what she'd told SHIELD. Loki felt no such thing. It gladdened him to think SHIELD was funding his new ascendancy.

And though he would be quite happy to never set eyes on Midgard again after this, once he was established elsewhere it might be nice to come back and gloat for a while, right before eliminating all of SHIELD's leadership and every one of Thor's little friends. Bruce Banner would be first. Natasha Romanov would be last, immediately after Barton, whose death in her presence would be slow and creative. Not exactly what he'd promised her before, but new circumstances demanded new consequences. Banner's would be swift, he thought, preferring in this iteration of his musings to avoid unnecessary risk, but still the most satisfying by far.

"This is incredible. It's doing our job for us," she said, interrupting a familiar chain of thought.

He spent less time fantasizing about those deaths than he used to – he'd been busy after all – and felt slightly uneasy about such thoughts now, sitting this close to Jane. He shrugged it off. It wasn't as though she could read his mind.

"What do you mean?"

"Watch." She made a few taps of her fingers on the mousepad and split the screen into three horizontal panels. "Here's where all the projections show the probe's momentum should be dropping off," she said, pointing at a change in the power output on the graph crawling slowly across the top of the screen. "But look at its momentum and trajectory," she said, pointing now to the other crawling graphs.

"Momentum is…it's increasing. Trajectory is unchanged," Loki said. The momentum should not have been increasing; it should have been decreasing due to Earth's gravity. The trajectory should have probably begun to drift a bit, no longer controlled by the precisely directed energy burst from Pathfinder. But a gravitational field had developed as the probe approached, and the small spherical object was hurtling even faster straight toward the center of the branch.

Jane had stumbled across this only some ten minutes earlier – they'd started with the particle emissions readouts, Jane's main interest. She'd barely been able to speak since. Loki was beginning to see why. If he understood what he was seeing, and he was growing more and more confident that he did, then several of the obstacles Jane insisted on continually reminding him about had just been eliminated. It wasn't nearly as much of a surprise to Loki as it was to Jane. On Asgard Yggdrasil was spoken of as something mystical and metaphorical but nonetheless real, interconnecting a distant family of nine. It hadn't occurred to him there that it so literally connected the Nine Realms, but once his nightmare led him in that direction, it seemed only logical that the ancient tree would be highly efficient in its task.

She was shaking her head. "This is…this is just…this is…"

"Shall I supply you with some adjectives to choose from?"

He'd expected her to laugh, or to roll her eyes at him, or to make some attempt at a witty retort. She didn't. Her face fell.

"But it means I've been…all this time…all the work I've done, all the instruments I burnt and cut myself over, all the reams and reams of data, all the late nights trying to figure out the quantum stability issue, and define exotic matter, and…" She fell silent.

It shouldn't bother him. He didn't care about her research for its own sake. He didn't care what she did when she left here, if she got a job in her country's best university or if she went back to living in some dust speck of a town and being ignored. But she looked like she'd been kicked in the gut.

His breaths sped up slightly as he struggled to decide how to react.

She was emotional and vulnerable; he could hurt her badly, throw out a calculated jest to watch her reaction to and offer a heartfelt apology for afterward. _You are not cruel_, came a voice from somewhere deep inside him, a voice he had learned to ignore quite successfully. He remembered plunging an imaging machine into an eye socket. His gaze drifted downward. _You are not _needlessly _cruel_, he amended. He had needed a precise three-dimensional scan of that eyeball, and it wasn't as though he'd killed the man it belonged to. It wasn't as though he'd thrown him off a bifrost into the jaws of the cosmos or tied him up under a venomous snake for years on end. The man would have gone to one of his people's healers and—

A rustle of clothing distracted him. Jane had shifted her position, pushed back a little into her chair. Her eyes were active, and he had no need to take the risk of skimming the surface to know what thoughts were behind those eyes. She was on the verge of tears.

Jane had been a puzzle to him once. He'd always enjoyed the challenge of a puzzle. More than enough pieces were now in place that he no longer saw her as that. She wanted freedom to pursue her theories, she wanted friends, she wanted to enjoy life. She longed for professional acceptance, perhaps more than anything else, and she now feared the effort she'd put toward that goal had been a waste of time. He could easily amplify that sense of pointlessness, of uselessness. He understood that reaction. He had over a thousand years of experience with being useless.

Or he could nudge her in a different direction. Toward a purpose. Toward _his_ purpose, which he had convinced her to adopt and which remained unchanged. He still needed her. He could express sympathy and encouragement. If he chose to offer comfort, it didn't have to be out of kindness. He had resisted showing her any real kindness. She was beneath him. She was loved by the former brother he hated. She was…

She was alone here. No one in all the cosmos knew how devastated she was by what she'd just learned. No one except for him. Perhaps he _could_ offer some true kindness. No one else was around to do it. No one was around to see _him _do it. And while he could, and would, use her as much as he needed to, he had no desire to hurt her. Or even to see her be hurt, he realized. Midgardian ant though she was, she wasn't a bad person. She was admirable, even, in a certain way, dedicated and intelligent. He couldn't even blame her for her infatuation with Thor; she was hardly alone in that, and she won points for not babbling on about it like some love-struck youth or even mentioning him by name.

Perhaps, then…

At the last moment, before he could say something he would surely regret, he remembered something he never should have forgotten. It didn't matter what _he_ wanted or did not want. He was playing a part. She wanted friends – needed them, she'd said – but Loki could not be friends with this woman. He wasn't an expert on friendship, never having had many friends himself, but there was nothing besides falsehood in his interactions with Jane and while falsehoods could make for highly useful relationships, they were hardly the best basis for actual friendship. But maybe Lucas could. He could try, anyway. It would be a difficult change; ever since arriving at McMurdo he'd cultivated a more distant, professional relationship with her. It had relaxed into something surprisingly comfortable, but it couldn't be called a friendship, he didn't think. Jane didn't seem to think it was. Yesterday she'd said that she needed friends, not that she needed _more_ friends.

"That's not true," he finally said, tentatively. "If it weren't for all your prior work, we would never have found the pre-existing wormhole in the first place. That work is what led us here."

She had let her head fall back and was staring up at the curved ceiling. "But…it was…I was all wrong. I was going about everything in the wrong way. It was here all along. For who knows _how_ long. Maybe since the beginning of the universe."

"Jane…your research is still perfectly valid. Wormhole theory hasn't gone away. It's just…it's something different, probably. This is a…a revolutionary discovery, but can't there be more than one kind of wormhole? If this isn't an Einstein-Rosen Bridge, that doesn't mean that Einstein-Rosen Bridges don't exist, correct? If you search for an orange but find an apple, it doesn't mean the orange isn't there, too."

Loki could tell she was listening – her eyes had drifted a bit in his direction instead of straight up – but no response was forthcoming. He thought further about what he might say if he were Midgardian, what Lucas might say.

"If you were living in primitive times and you came across a microwave to heat your food in, wouldn't you still want to know how to create fire?"

Jane lifted her head back into a normal position and stared at him like he had lost his faculties. He reviewed his analogy, was certain it was accurate. He'd become well acquainted with microwaves at the South Pole. "What?" he asked, as she continued to stare.

"Yeah, I'd definitely still want to know how to create fire. Especially if I didn't also come across an electrical outlet and a functioning power grid in those 'primitive times.' But great, yeah, I got it. You're comparing my life's work to striking a flint against a piece of dry wood. Thanks, I feel much better now."

He frowned. Such sarcasm didn't suit her. Not when she was supposed to be grateful for how nice he was trying to be. "No, I'm comparing your life's work to the foundations of human discovery and civilization," he said, then fought to keep his expression neutral. He'd laid it on a little thick with that one.

Jane, apparently, agreed, for after a moment she looked away and broke into light laughter. "Uh-huh," she said after a moment, but she smiled as she said it.

"This affects my work too, you know. I never expected something like this. I wanted to achieve something grand. Something never done before. I wanted to work with you to learn how wormholes function and how to artificially create them. But now it looks like we don't have to do that. We can still achieve something grand with what we've found here. _Some_ kind of wormhole already exists. And it reacts. Precisely as though it were intended for travel."

"It reacts…selectively," Jane said, her eyes drifting back down to the graphs still slowly progressing on the computer screen.

Loki looked back at it himself, but didn't understand what she was seeing. "What do you mean?"

After a moment she looked back at him, and her expression had completely transformed. Loki knew this look; she was fitting pieces of her own scientific puzzle into place. "It's generating gravitational force, pulling the probe toward it, right? But look now. It's stopped. And the probe's momentum is finally slowing. It doesn't pull in just anything. If it did, we'd have satellites and space shuttles getting pulled out of orbit and even going missing. This…this interstellar highway, this bridge, whatever it is, it somehow detects objects moving directly toward its center, its focus, like the probe, and then it…it…." She stopped and rubbed her eyes with her thumb and fingers. "I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore."

"It was designed for travel." He thought that was what she was getting at, anyway. No matter he'd already said it.

She was nodding. "And it's here, above Earth. And we know it leads to Asgard because this is _exactly_ where the failed fifth event terminated, and that event was initiated on Asgard."

She was right, Loki thought, although she was missing a few key facts. The "failed fifth event" was directed from Asgard to Jotunheim, not Midgard. He suspected that so much energy had been coursing through the bifrost as he attempted to destroy Jotunheim that some of it had slipped through the other branches and would have been visible in all the other realms, not just Midgard.

"It connects…wait," Jane said, suddenly sitting up ramrod straight. "Wait, wait. Oh, my…I know this. I know what this is. I think I…hold on." She reached down for the small brown backpack she'd taken to carrying now that they were regularly going back and forth between two and sometimes three worksites. From inside she withdrew the thick bound notebook she usually had with her; Loki had seen her consulting it or taking notes in it enough times, and had once paged through it when he had a few minutes alone with it – schematics for her various devices, random isolated notes, strange symbols in mathematical equations he still had difficulty deciphering, drawings and doodles, and at least one grocery list. He hadn't given it any thought since.

She thumbed through its pages, finding the one she was looking for quickly enough that Loki could tell she had gone to that spot often. "Look at this."

He looked. Across the two pages were crude drawings of nine planets, each with a thick surrounding ring, some with moons. Lines marked paths between them. He'd seen this page before. It had caught his attention because of the number of planets, but none were particularly reminiscent of the actual Nine Realms, except possibly Vanaheim, which did have a thin asteroid belt. He'd then taken it for meaningless doodles, perhaps meant to signify the nine planets ascribed to Midgard's own little solar system…at least until recently when someone had apparently decided to demote one of them.

Loki looked back up at Jane impatiently, wondering if he was supposed to glean some startling revelation from these sketches that reminded him of pointless little drawings he would have made as a child.

"The man who came from Asgard, the first one who came, he added these lines. Like the branches of a tree. He said the tree was called Yggdrasil, and its branches linked together…the 'nine realms of the cosmos.' Midgard – that means Earth – Alfheim, Vanaheim, Jotunheim, and Asgard."

Turning back to the book again, Loki continued to look at Jane through lowered eyelids. His fingers slowly tightened into fists at his side. "I only count five." He wondered if Thor had forgotten the names of the other four. Jane wouldn't have. He didn't really think that, though, anyway. He and Thor both could name them in their sleep before they'd even started any formal study of the cosmos. And they'd been to all of them…all except Helheim, of course.

"Well…he only told me five. I was…I guess I was kind of distracted."

She wore some mixture of guilt and wistfulness that Loki found nauseating. If she didn't stop this he would be forced to take back those points he'd awarded.

"Oh! He told me another one later: Svartalfheim."

"Really."

"It doesn't matter. The names, I mean. What matters is…we found Yggdrasil. It really exists. And we found it. And it connects us to Asgard. Not just Asgard, but Alfheim, Vanaheim, and Jotunheim."

"And Svartalfheim," he said, and something burned brightly inside him to be able to speak the word aloud.

"And Svartalfheim," she echoed. "Oh! I just wish I'd listened better. Well, listened _differently_. More to his words and less to his voice. I wish I'd asked better questions. I wish I'd asked _any_ questions." She stood up and started pacing, taking the journal with her and staring down at the drawing Thor had apparently contributed to.

_You did the best you could, Jane. _He_ didn't understand what he was telling you, and he couldn't have answered your questions._ And then he found himself going easy on Thor yet again, admitting that he hadn't known the true nature of Yggdrasil himself either. He would have explained it better, though, he was certain. At the very least he wouldn't have told her there were nine realms and then proceed to name only five of them and later throw in a random sixth for good measure.

As Loki watched her, his eyes kept being drawn to the journal as well. It felt strange to be so far from Asgard, to have so thoroughly left it behind, and to know that Thor's hands had touched that paper. Thor couldn't let him go, it seemed. No matter where he went, no matter what he did. But Thor lived in the past. Thor _was_ the past.

"You can't change that now, so don't berate yourself over it. The question now is, what is our next step?" Loki watched Jane carefully as she brought her pacing to a halt and her eyes focused on nothing identifiable. He had pushed so much already that he needed to be careful, let her come to her own conclusions. The right ones, hopefully.

"Well…," she began after a long pause. "We have a lot of new data to go through. Not to mention everything else that's still coming in from my other instruments. We've kind of neglected that over the last week or so."

Loki kept a tight rein on his reaction. Those were not the right conclusions. Perhaps for her, with her desire to publish her analysis of these mountains of data and expound upon them endlessly at meetings of fellow scientists, but not for him. He had more immediate goals.

"But…this is too…I thought we'd have to figure out how to link up with the wormhole. With Yggdrasil. Now…now we know Yggdrasil will do that, on its own. So…I can't believe I'm saying this, but…I think we're going to be able to try sending a probe through soon." She looked up at him at the last.

"I'm now waiting for the real Jane Foster to appear and give the imposter before me a lecture on the scientific method. What is your hypothesis, Doctor?"

"My hypothesis is…you are _such_ a bad influence," Jane said in exasperation. "There's no way to know what will happen. There's no way to know where the probe will end up. If this is really Yggdrasil, and if Yggdrasil connects these nine worlds, and if we manage to send a probe into it and out the other side…in theory it could wind up near any of the other worlds. Realms. But wormholes are tunnels through spacetime. They're only supposed to have two ends. So…either Yggdrasil is something really different from what's been conceived of on Earth, or…maybe there are multiple wormholes? Eight distinct tunnels leading to and from Earth, one to each of the other realms. In that case, we know this tunnel goes to Asgard."

"We know at the very least that it _can_ go to Asgard," Loki said, assuming she would be more likely to push forward if she thought the branch they'd located led there. For his part, knowing the relative locations of the realms and conceiving of Midgard as near the bottom and Asgard as at the very top, he strongly suspected that if something entered the branch here it would by default go directly through to Asgard, while journey to the other realms would require a diversion. Good for Jane, less good for him. How was he supposed to determine which diversion led to Svartalfheim, or even where the diversions within Yggdrasil were located anyway? There was no time to waste. "Let's find out. We can send a probe through Yggdrasil right now."

Jane had been nodding slowly, mulling things over in her head, but now she stopped short and stared.

"Oh, why do I get the feeling you're about to say something mind-numbingly familiar?" Loki muttered, sitting back and looking away.

"Maybe because _you_ just did. But I'll say it anyway since apparently you need to hear it anyway. We can't just send a probe through right now. Not if we want to actually find out what happens to it after it enters the wormhole. Not if we want to be able to retrieve the data it gathers from the other side. I have no idea if the recall function works from within Earth's orbit, much less from across the galaxy through a wormhole. There _are_ still some other things we have to accomplish first."

"Fine, if it must be tested, we send one of these little balls through Yggdrasil and we test it."

"'These little balls' aren't tennis balls and they don't grow on trees. I only have three more, and I don't have SHIELD's software engineers or Tony Stark's robotics or even the necessary materials to make more here. This is it." She paused and took a deep breath, her eyes now locked stubbornly on his. "We're going to have to think this through and do some planning."

/

* * *

/

Jane sat in her room after a late dinner that night, staring at her closed laptop. She'd missed the satellite window entirely today so hadn't checked her e-mail, but now she was really wishing she could look up "Yggdrasil" online. She'd done so once before, actually, a few days after Thor mentioned it; due to its unexpected spelling she hadn't been able to find it until she first looked up the other realms he'd named. But what she'd found had seemed so fantastical – more like a complex cultural myth than either science _or_ magic – that she'd dismissed it as a beautiful story, or least beautiful when told by Thor, but not particularly helpful. She supposed she couldn't be completely certain about Asgard, but she was pretty sure Earth wasn't dangling off the boughs of a giant ash tree like some oversized blue Christmas ornament.

Then again…metaphorically speaking…

It was unquestionably bizarre. But she was living at the South Pole with a landscape of ice, ice, and more ice in temperatures that were already by far the lowest she'd ever experienced and the sun had just barely set, where nothing lived except for fifty hardy Polies. And then there was Acting King Thor dropping out of the sky over New Zealand making her drop her car keys. Bizarre was becoming the new normal.

Jane looked down at the bottom right drawer of her desk as it occurred to her she did have a potential source of information on Yggdrasil, even without the internet. With a sigh of resignation she opened the drawer and fished around for the book Darcy sent, which had wound up at the bottom again. She moved the laptop to the side and set _The Complete Guide to Norse Mythology_ down on the desk in front of her, opening to the table of contents. The book was divided into two sections, the first an overview of prominent people and concepts – and yes, there was Yggdrasil, and there was Thor and Loki, and Sif and Baldur. She didn't see a reference to "the Warriors Three," but then she hadn't gotten their actual names either, so maybe they were in there and she just didn't recognize them. The second section provided summaries and excerpts of key texts from the written record of the mythology.

Jane turned to the page listed for Yggdrasil, but she stuck a scrap piece of paper in to mark the table of contents. Afterward, she could read what it said about Thor. Enough time had passed since the initial shock of what Darcy had told her. She could take it now. It wasn't true anyway. Unless…maybe there was a _metaphorical_ serpent wrapped around Earth that called Thor "uncle." Jane laughed at the absurdity. She could read about Loki, find out more than that he was a trickster who'd killed Thor's other brother, supposedly with mistletoe. That little detail stood out in her memories of what she read in the children's book from the library because it was so strange. On TV people somehow always wound up standing under it at Christmas and kissing, while Loki had put it to an entirely different use. She could read about Sif. _It could prove useful for science, you never know_, she thought as she tried to assure herself she was not at all jealous. _And there is no way he's married. Not possible._ He didn't seem like the deceitful type, not even when he might have fared better with a little more deceit. It was one of the things she loved about him.

_Love?_ She stumbled over the thought. _Figure of speech_, the rational side of her supplied. Dangerous thoughts. Distracting at the very least. She hadn't even looked at the page she'd opened to yet.

Yggdrasil. She forced herself to read the single page carefully, with its foreign words so unlike the Greek and Latin she was used to in scientific literature, and its speculative analysis on the history and significance and mystical nature of the tree. She followed the cross references to mentions of Yggdrasil in the second section, and was excited to read in an excerpt from the _Prose Edda_ that Yggdrasil's branches reached out over the sky, and its three roots led to the Aesir of Asgard, the frost jotnar, and Niflheim. It didn't match exactly – and Thor had definitely put Asgard at the "top," if that actually meant anything – but the concept of Yggdrasil connecting the worlds was clearly there. Even more exciting was a line about the gods riding daily to some well in Yggdrasil's roots via the bifrost bridge, as well as a line about a squirrel that ran up and down the tree carrying messages – both suggested to her a connection between Yggdrasil and travel, even bifrost travel.

Jane read about eagles and hawks and stags and serpents and three people called "norns." But if any of it was somehow relevant to the scientific study of Yggdrasil or wormholes in general, Jane was at a loss. This was simply not her field.

She frowned and sat back. _What did you really expect? This isn't the Asgardian…Aesir take on Yggdrasil, it's the medieval Viking take on a concept they had no ability to comprehend, embellished along the way to turn it all into a good story._

She decided to let squirrels and stags percolate, and flipped back to the front of the book, then to the page where Sif's story was told. "That's not right," she said aloud right away, when the first sentence said Sif was a blond. "Oh." Loki had cut off her hair. "Ouch." But he'd replaced it with some kind of magical blond wig after Thor threatened to break every bone in his body. Jane hadn't paid much attention given the circumstances, but Sif's hair had looked natural to her, and it certainly wasn't blond. The image of Sif in the book looked nothing like the woman she'd met. The phrase "wife of the god of thunder, Thor," in the second sentence, didn't seem quite so potent then. Or the one about them having a child together.

She turned to a cross-reference in the second section, to a story in which Thor's father tells him Sif has a lover. Then there was another one in which Loki says he's had an affair with Sif. She wondered if it could be true, and if so…maybe it meant Sif was actually Thor's ex? No, surely not.

And Loki…it fit with what Darcy had told her. It seemed almost like there were two Lokis. Cutting off someone's hair sounded like a mean prank – it wasn't exactly on par with trying to destroy or subjugate entire planets. Sleeping with your brother's wife – if it were true – that was what you might call stepping it up a notch.

She tried to picture Loki cutting off Sif's hair – because no way was she going to try to picture the _other_ story – and found she could not. It was simply too far from what she knew of him, she supposed. It was also giving her a headache.

Although she'd meant to look up Thor and Loki too, she decided she'd reached her limit of Ripley's-Believe-It-Or-Not Norse mythology for the day and she would treat herself to some greenhouse time. The humidity there was a heavenly 60%, there was a relatively comfy couch, and there might be someone to chat with other than Lucas.

They'd really started to grate on each other's nerves by the time they stopped working, falling into yet another predictable argument. This time it was over the fact that, whether Lucas liked it or not, SISI – and in reality SHIELD – had paid for them to be here, and they couldn't just abandon the research they were supposed to be carrying out. She needed to send weekly updates and data dumps to SISI, and even if Yggdrasil allowed them to leapfrog over half the things she'd expected to have figure out before reaching the point they were at now, she still wanted that data herself. As Lucas had correctly pointed out, she'd said in order to assuage his temper (it hadn't worked), that research was still perfectly valid and ultimately she still wanted to solve the mysteries of the classic Einstein-Rosen Bridge.

When Jane had declared it time to stop for the day, wanting to make it to the galley in time for supper and try to keep something closer to the normal nine-hour South Pole workday at least a few days a week, they'd argued again. In the end Lucas stormed off and Jane put on her brave face and sat down for dinner with three people she barely knew – no seat for Lucas. As far as she knew he never even showed up for dinner. She felt guilty about it now; she got the sense that he needed a friend even if he acted like all he needed was work, and she'd wanted to try to pull him back into South Pole life with her, not deliberately push him away like when they'd first met. But he made it so difficult sometimes.

_Definitely greenhouse time now_. Just thinking about the constant tug-of-war with Lucas today made her headache worse. Jane dropped the mythology book back in its drawer home and grabbed her rose book instead; if the greenhouse was deserted it would make for appropriate and, most importantly, stress-free reading material.

/

* * *

/

Odin had returned to Alfheim with new tactics – an assurance that the tesseract had only been vulnerable in the first place because it had _not_ been on Asgard and that it was fully protected now that it was, an offer to cast an enchantment over the bifrost, once it was rebuilt, preventing Loki from ever using it again, and an invitation to attack. The attack would be a controlled experiment, a test of Asgard's safeguards of its powerful treasures, to be planned and carried out however Alfheim and the other realms saw fit, the only proviso being that no one from either side was actually harmed.

"'We have never asked you for anything. And now we ask for but two treasures out of so many, and your criminal son,'" Odin repeated to Thor on the balcony outside the feasting hall. "My 'criminal son.'"

Silence lingered, heavy and uncomfortable.

"One week remains. You may yet convince the remaining two realms of their foolishness," Thor said at last. He felt it was what he was supposed to say.

"I will attempt it. But you know as well as I that it's unlikely to make a difference at this point. Svartalfheim and Vanaheim have taken the lead in this alliance against us. We must break them apart, or, barring that, we must peel away all the others from their influence. But if not even Alfheim can be swayed…"

Alfheim may not have been the close ally that Vanaheim had long been, but Alfheim had never raised a weapon against Asgard, something not even Vanaheim, which had fought a protracted and brutal war against Asgard, could claim. The realm was hardly pacifist, though; it had seen alliances and wars come and go with its sister realm, Svartalfheim. The two currently were operating under a treaty of truce, with peaceful relations marred by the occasional tension. For over a century Alfheim had had better relations with Asgard than with Svartalfheim.

Odin looked down over the city without really seeing it, deep in thought, while Thor waited for him to continue, to bring wisdom to this madness.

"You said the Midgardian warrior with whom you spoke suspected Svartalfheim of intending to steal the tesseract from Vanaheim."

"He did say that."

"There is a certain logic in this idea. If this is really about Svartalfheim wanting the tesseract, they will find it less of a challenge to wrest it from Vanaheim than from us. Still…I believe there must be more to it. Why insist also on the Ice Casket? On Loki?"

Thor thought it over, letting his own gaze fall over Asgard. "I have never known the Dark Elves to show much interest in the Frost Giants. Perhaps…perhaps they wish to disguise their true interest. When I met with Gullveig on Vanaheim, he only mentioned the Ice Casket and Loki. Not the tesseract."

Odin nodded. "He knew we could never agree to surrender the tesseract. The Ice Casket is a cold trinket by comparison, and Loki…"

Thor glanced over at him, but Odin had angled his face away. They had spoken very little of Loki since he'd been sent to Midgard, and Thor hoped for a sign that his father considered Loki just as valuable as the tesseract, and not a "cold trinket." He grimaced. He knew his father loved Loki, but he also knew their relationship was complicated, and had been for a very long time. And Odin was a king, not just a father. Thor had seen the persistent sorrow in Odin after they'd thought Loki had perished. He knew the value his _father_ placed on Loki; he did not know the value the _All-Father_ placed on him.

"Whatever is going on here, even if we accept what we have been told at face value, we may be able to benefit from the suggestion that Svartalfheim plans to steal the tesseract."

"How so?" Thor asked, turning to face his father fully.

"We spread rumors that Svartalfheim is using the other realms, committing them to a war merely so they can take the tesseract for their own purposes. In this manner we may be able to make them turn on Svartalfheim and end their alliance against us."

"We…spread rumors?" Thor repeated, stunned. _Trickery?_ _Deceit?_

"Yes. It's a potent weapon, and one we can draw first, without drawing blood."

Thor fought to remain silent as long as he could, to try to _think_ the words before he said them. He tried, and then the words came tumbling out, but calmly, if not quite as calmly as he'd intended. "Why should we play along with these games? We could draw a _real_ weapon. No one would be expecting it. We could strike against Svartalfheim. Remind them and every one of their so-called allies that it is unwise to make threats against Asgard.

"We cannot be goaded into that, Thor. It would only confirm what the other realms have said about us. We cannot act against them now without provocation."

"We _have_ been provoked!"

"Yes, you're correct," Odin said, not matching Thor's raised voice. "But we've been provoked only with words, and we will respond only in kind. Thor…we must try everything we can to prevent this war from engulfing the realms. You have experienced battle many times over. But you have never experienced war, not truly. I have. You've seen Jotunheim; that is what war looks like. I don't want that brought to Asgard."

"Jotunheim is what _defeat_ looks like. We are not Jotunheim." He had reduced his volume, and the words came out tightly controlled, rumbling and low.

Odin exhaled slowly, then nodded. "No, we aren't," he agreed. "Jotunheim fought only us and a smattering of Vanir. At the moment, _we_ are challenged by the Frost Giants, the Dark Elves, the Light Elves, the Vanir-"

"I know. But _we_ are the Aesir. We-"

"We have no guarantee of winning every battle. We have no guarantee of winning every war. If we must raise our weapons we will do so, and we will do so with great honor and make our ancestors proud."

"And fighting with trickery? Will this bring us honor?" Thor demanded, unable to hide his disdain, unwilling, really, to try.

"If it spares the lives of our sons and daughters and safeguards our place at the top of Yggdrasil, yes, I believe it will."

Thor shook his head and closed the small distance between him and the sun-warmed stone railing. He leaned into it and gripped it tightly, thinking back to all the stories of battle he'd grown up with. Asgard was steeped in such stories. Wars fought in Asgard and on multiple other realms. Battles with creatures of all types, and the occasional bout with some from outside the Nine seeking to flex their muscles. Feats of great strength and courage. Sharpened blades and weapons forged with powerful magic. Warriors returning home and heroes mourned and celebrated. He recalled no stories of using deception to avoid war. The very thought was almost too distasteful to imagine. And Odin, the mightiest warrior Asgard had ever known, had proposed it.

_And yet…and yet…this would not be your biggest deception. You raised us with deception, both of us. Was there honor in _that_?_ _Why did you lie?_ And yet…he knew. He knew why Odin lied. He knew everything; his father had explained it all. And he'd understood. A father's desire to protect his child wasn't so difficult to understand, even if Thor was not a father himself. But he found his anger building and focusing on Odin nonetheless. Surely there was a right time, in all those years, to tell Loki the truth. A better one than had actually happened.

"I will present this proposal during war council tonight. If you disapprove, you may voice your concern in the council hall. You may also present your own proposal, if you think it has merit."

Thor nodded but did not trust himself to speak.

Odin stepped closer to him and put a hand on his shoulder. "Do not assume victory, Thor. Remember Jotunheim."

_Jotunheim. The place of defeat._ Memories of his own battle there coursed through him. Of a fist thrown here, Mjolnir thrown there. Of blood roaring in his veins and a roar bursting from his throat. Of a feeling of invincibility. Of assumed victory, if he'd have taken the time to assume anything. Of standing on the edge of an ice sheet unable to see what lay below or how far down "below" was, while hundreds of Frost Giants approached, surrounding him and his battered friends. Odin had rescued them. Thor had never allowed himself to think what might have happened had Odin not shown up when he did.

"Words can also be a sharp-edged weapon, Son." Odin gave his shoulder a squeeze and turned to leave.

That evening, someone else suggested an attack against Svartalfheim, while another noted that attacking Vanaheim was also a possibility. A few murmurs of approval followed the mention of Svartalfheim; uncomfortable silence marred by the occasional cough or shuffled feet followed the mention of Vanaheim. Neither proposal sounded appropriate when he heard it in someone else's words, so Thor remained silent and listened.

* * *

/

_Thanks so much for reading, double-thanks for reviewing, to guests also to whom I can't respond via PM (Guest 1/11: "mutually fond of" + "mutual exasperation," well-put! Loki would disagree with the first part, but you can see in this chapter he wouldn't be answering entirely honestly), I really appreciate all of your comments and reactions. You who have read so far, some of you for months now, it's such an honor that you've stuck with it._

_Did you notice there's a picture now? I took it from Wikipedia. I was really excited to find it - that's an aurora right over Antarctica, folks. And green to symbolize Loki's presence. ;-) Pic by NASA. I think it's obscure enough though that new readers will not see it and guess the story takes place in Antarctica. If you as a reader who once did not know it took place in Antarctica disagree let me know please._

_Teasers from "Chapter 29: Forgetting" (I think that's what I'll title it): Loki starts thinking more and more about leaving, and leaving the past behind, and how that's easier said than done; Loki is a big faker (surprise, surprise); and more of Loki's control over Jane starts to slip away, even as he realizes Odin has more control than he thought._

_And excerpt (some of it refers to stuff that happens right before this bit):  
_

"Don't you read your e-mail, Lucas? They've sent out two about the Mass Casualty Incident drill."

"I read e-mail every day without fail, Jane," he answered with a smirk. He read _hers_ every day without fail. But he didn't bother with the internal United States Antarctic Program messages; they were not of concern. _Thor probably has no idea what e-mail is_, he thought sarcastically, trying to recover a little of the dignity he thought he'd ceded with his slip, but instead setting off a battle inside him._  
_


	30. (29) Forgetting

**Beneath**

**Chapter Twenty-Nine – Forgetting**

The next day seemed designed from the start to push Loki beyond his tolerance for pretending to be Lucas. He went to the galley for breakfast at 6:15 and found Jane already there, sitting with Macy, the woman who tended to the plants in the greenhouse and who had sat across from Loki at the sunset dinner. It was becoming clear that Jane's change of heart about the rest of the South Pole's inhabitants was not a one-time aberration. He took a deep, slow breath to try to relax, to not reveal how unhappy he was with the development. At least Macy was one of the less offensive people he'd met here.

He filled his plate with pancakes and maple syrup – the pancakes were freshly prepared and more edible than most of the breakfast options, particularly considering he could barely stomach the meat here anymore – and got a cup of hot water and a teabag. He was glad Jane was already here. He would eat fast to catch up with her and they could get an early start on their work. Or at least _he _could, if she still insisted on spending part of her day on the work he now considered irrelevant.

_Or_, as it turned out, he could add yet another layer to his disguise and spend a morning as a Frost Giant castoff pretending to be an Aesir prince pretending to be a Midgardian apprentice scientist pretending to be a healer rescuing someone from a disaster at the South Pole.

Loki leaned back in his chair and massaged his brow – he had stayed up all night studying one of Jane's Pathfinder probes and then skimming and approving her incoming and outgoing e-mail, and he hadn't gone to bed the night before either. He was sleeping so sporadically that he was tiring more quickly than normal. "Are you certain we're _all_ required to do this? I'm no healer and if I were trapped in a fire I don't think I would want to have to rely on _you_ to rescue me."

"Hey!" Jane said indignantly. "I don't even know where to begin with that one."

"I do," Macy said. "To take it point by point: Yes. 'Healer'? And, you better hope you don't get trapped in a fire because Jane may just decide _not_ to rescue you."

Loki took a quick bite of pancake and dripping syrup. _Healer_ was a slip, and a stupid one at that. He knew they weren't called that here. Thor of all people had been the one to tell him so. And if he was beginning to blend in less than Thor, he was going to have to make sure he slept more frequently.

"Don't you read your e-mail, Lucas? They've sent out two about the Mass Casualty Incident drill."

"I read e-mail every day without fail, Jane," he answered with a smirk. He read _hers_ every day without fail. But he didn't bother with the internal United States Antarctic Program messages; they were not of concern. _Thor probably has no idea what e-mail is_, he thought sarcastically, trying to recover a little of the dignity he thought he'd ceded with his slip, but instead setting off a battle inside him.

Because it didn't matter what Thor knew or didn't know. _Thor_ didn't matter. Thor was the past. A past that may have had something good in it at some point, but everything good – every laugh, every bit of affection, every brotherly bond – had been based on a lie and had soured and spoiled. And Thor had always been blind to how much things had changed; the changes wrought by the exposure of that lie and all the events that followed were no different. He needed to stop thinking so reflexively about Thor, but after over a thousand years of constantly comparing himself to a favored older brother it wasn't an easy habit to break.

Meanwhile the conversation had gone on without him, and Jane was saying something about hoping she got to use an ax, which caught Loki's attention. "There are going to be axes?"

"Depends what the scenario is, I imagine. They'll tell us at the meeting this morning."

Loki had misunderstood earlier; the drill itself, he learned, would come sometime later and this morning at 8:30 there was only a meeting to plan for it.

He sat in the meeting and alternated between paying attention and shaking his head with incredulity over the whole thing, including the fact that he was actually paying attention. He was so close to being able to get off this planet he could almost smell the peculiarly strong wet-earth scent of Svartalfheim. If their tests went well, his departure could be mere days away. But instead of making progress on that, he was learning how he was supposed to enact some kind of drama in which he would help save the life of some unfortunate mortal. The irony was, if it weren't for his other priorities, he might actually enjoy this odd cross between the performances he and Thor had to stage for their tutors when they were children and the adventures they'd had as they grew older. There would be some unpredictable combination of axes and crowbars and other more technical tools, some kind of fire extinguisher, injuries of any and all sorts, and power failure, and in the meantime dozens of mortals were taking the game almost laughably seriously. They had no choice, of course; if fire broke out here, or their three main power generators failed, or someone was seriously injured, assistance wouldn't show up until late October, so if they didn't want to die waiting for help they'd best know how to solve these problems themselves.

Loki hoped to be gone by the time the drill took place. Still, if he were free to use his magic as he wished, he could give them a more realistic Mass Casualty Incident drill that would truly test their mettle, and the chaos of it all would be exceptionally entertaining. And then there was Jane. Seeing her attired as one of those New York firefighters and swinging an ax to break through a wall and pull some pretend victim through a smoky haze – seeing her attempt it, at least, he couldn't imagine she was actually capable of it – _that_ would be almost worth delaying his departure.

Zeke, the mechanic who was running this meeting, and apparently responsible for planning the game and serving as the "Incident Commander," started outlining the responsibilities of the four teams. The "hasty," fire, logistics, and trauma teams were apparently supposed to cooperate, not compete – logical, he supposed, but still disappointing. Today was Wednesday; he would have to meet with the other members of the trauma team on Friday morning, and in the meantime, he was supposed to review the use of CPR, spine boards, cervical spine collars, and other Midgardian healing techniques and implements he knew nothing about, unless they simply went by different names on Asgard. Loki realized he never should have listed on his paperwork that he had any medical training; he did, even beyond what every warrior learned of basic field treatment, but it looked like it would be irrelevant here.

As the lecture turned more technical and less comprehensible, Loki's interest waned. _I'll be gone before their little drama unfolds_, he assured himself. He wondered if he should bother feigning continued interest, wondered whether Lucas would be interested. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. He had let Lucas edge closer to himself than he'd intended – he'd originally planned for a much nicer, overtly friendlier, eager-to-please Lucas – and it was becoming more difficult to remember the distinctions.

His wandering thoughts turned inevitably back to the work that he and Jane were not getting done now because of this interminable meeting, and as he grew more restless he began tapping his hand in a steady rhythm against his thigh. When he realized what he was doing he immediately stopped; a wry smile worked its way across his lips as he further realized he was behaving more like Thor than himself, losing a battle to pay attention to his lessons because he would rather be… _Stop it_, he ordered himself. _This_ was his losing battle. _This_ was another weakness. So many remained even though he tried to tell himself otherwise. _Will it take another thousand years to forget?_ he asked himself.

An idea seized him. Magic. Could some form of magic make him forget? Anything involving the mind was dangerous. Loki had learned that lesson after he fell from the bifrost. He could transmit a suggestion but not force its acceptance; he could interfere with a memory if it were close enough to the surface, as he had done with Jane when they'd first met. He'd suffered when it was inflicted on him, but he'd always managed to learn while suffering. _Alfheim_, he thought. On Alfheim he might find someone who could more permanently alter or even erase memories, or at least someone who knew whether it could be done. _What would I choose to forget?_ he wondered, the possibility so intriguing he lost all sense of what was going on around him. Events and people flashed through his mind and after a few minutes he realized he'd asked the wrong question. _What would I choose to remember?_ It would be better even that he forgot the woman he called "Mother," because then, if he never saw Asgard again, he wouldn't miss something he didn't know existed. _What would be left? Who would I be?_

His hands were trembling on his lap when he heard his name spoken. His invented name. He glanced across the conference room table, where Jane was sitting, a mischievous grin on her face. Loki had no idea what he'd missed, but suspected he was being called out for his complete inattention to the proceedings. _Who would I be…_

"Lucas? You okay with being one of our victims?" Zeke asked, watching him expectantly.

"What? Oh, yes, of course," he said, realizing a half-second too late what he was being asked. He looked back at Jane, now smiling overly sweetly at him. He returned it with a hint of a sneer. She had volunteered him to play the role of one of the casualties in the Mass Casualty Incident. She probably wanted to prove her ability to save him from whatever calamity he was destined for, and perhaps to make him endure some form of mild suffering along the way as revenge for his blatant lack of faith in her abilities. She would fail in the former without assistance from someone stronger, he was certain, and he could ensure she failed in the latter, because no one was better at that game than him.

He wouldn't need anyone here to save him, especially not _Jane_.

When the meeting finally ended, it was time for what Jane called a "scavenger hunt," and what Loki had quickly figured out was a children's game known as "Hidden Treasure" on Asgard. Adults could play it, too, here at the South Pole, when one found oneself needing to cobble together electronic devices from scraps instead of building them in well-stocked laboratories run by SHIELD. To be fair, of course, he'd also played Asgard's version of this game into adulthood. As a prince and a warrior in a millennium marked largely by peace, he'd had plenty of time on his hands.

That was not the case today. Starting with the Dark Sector Lab and working his way through the Ice Cube Lab and the jamesways, Loki took the list of components and materials Jane had put together yesterday and searched for hidden treasure. The sleep he'd forgone had paid off, in that he understood what he was looking for, and he located a number of items either as-is or salvageable from other discarded equipment, of which there was plenty waiting to be taken to McMurdo and removed from Antarctica.

He met Jane for dinner in the galley so they could update each other on their progress. In lowered voices they compared notes and found they were still missing over a dozen critical components.

"I have an idea about that," Jane said, then paused to take a bite of her meal.

"I'm listening," Loki said, tamping down a laugh that threatened to come out as soon as he'd said the words. The Iron Man could not have had better timing when he'd whisked Thor away in the midst of his self-righteous threats. The urge to laugh died when almost instantly he realized he'd done it again. How many times in one day now had Thor crossed his mind? Or his mother? At least thoughts of his father had not…and with that, of course, they had. And the old man was not even his father.

"The first thing we _really_ have to accomplish, practically speaking, is to make sure the recall function works. We have to be able to launch a probe into Yggdrasil and know we can retrieve the data it collects, and also, if we reach a point where we can send a person through, we need to be sure we can get that person back."

"'If'?" Loki asked, before she could continue. "Such a lack of confidence."

"I figure you have more than enough to make up for it. Are you trying to get rid of me?"

"You?" Loki asked with surprise amped up to astonishment for effect. "What makes you think _you're _going to be the first to travel through Yggdrasil?"

Jane tucked her hair behind her ears and smiled. "Because _I_ am the project lead, and _you_ are the assistant."

"Hmm, I suppose you're correct. Therefore you are more valuable to the scientific world here, and I should be the one to take the risk of being the first to try it," Loki said in his most reasonable tone of voice. This was no more than a game, of course; what she thought about who was making use of Pathfinder first was irrelevant. As soon as he was reasonably certain he could reach Svartalfheim, or at least Asgard and then onward to Svartalfheim, he would disappear in the night…such as it was. He glanced outside through the large windows of the galley. The sun was gone but they remained in 24-hour twilight, and would until sometime in April, he'd heard.

Jane was shaking her head at him. "That's why we test. To minimize the risk."

"I volunteer to speed things up by making _myself_ the test. If I come back, you'll know the recall function works."

"Right, Lucas, we'll just set you up on top of Pathfinder, shoot you up into space and aim you at Yggdrasil and see what happens."

"We're agreed, then," Loki said with a smile, sticking out his hand, which he knew she wouldn't shake.

"You just want to be able to escape before the MCI drill when I'm going to make you eat your words by saving your life."

"Dr. Foster…the things you come up with sometimes are nothing short of astonishing. It's quite the contrary, actually. I look forward to laughing heartily as you attempt to pull me from an imaginary inferno."

"Yeah, we'll just see who's laughing over that, Lucas." Jane was staring at him intently as if in challenge, but he suspected there was at least some genuine irritation there.

"You _did_ say you thought I should try to have more fun," Loki said, putting his hands in the air for a moment in mock surrender. "But I'm willing to sacrifice fun for the sake of science. Don't take any of this personally."

"From everything you've just said, I don't see how I could take it anything _but_ personally. But that's okay. You're nothing but talk, anyway."

_That_ was insulting. The smile on his face froze. "You said you had an idea."

"Oh, yeah," Jane said, suddenly serious again. "I was thinking, if all we have to do for now is test the recall function, we don't actually need to use a probe. Not the whole thing anyway. Just the transmitter unit built into it that Pathfinder tracks."

"That's a good idea. We can then attach the transmitter to anything with a similar size and mass, and we won't have to construct any additional probes," Loki said. He'd thought of it himself late last night; he was pleased that Jane had thought of it, too. He took the other side of the paper they had marked their consolidated list of supplies on, and turned it so they could both see it. "That leaves us with only two missing components. The batteries and the circuit board."

"Two circuit boards, actually."

"But you said you can make those?"

"I think so. I scavenged some boards from some old electronics, so I've got something to start with. The ones in the Pathfinder probes are a little more sophisticated than the ones I've made on my own. But Gary said I could-"

"Gary?"

"The machinist. I told you. He said I could use his equipment. He might even be able to help with the electronics and the soldering. He did some pretty cool stuff for the Navy, apparently."

Loki nodded, though with a bit of unease. He hadn't realized anyone from any of Midgard's militaries worked here. He wasn't even sure who this "Gary" was, and wondered if he'd made a mistake in so deliberately ignoring everyone here. "All right. And the batteries?"

"That's a bigger problem," Jane said with a frown and a nod. "I don't think we're going to find any lithium jelly batteries just laying around. I'm not even sure they're commercially available yet. I got them from Tony Stark, together with the arc reactor. Something his company was developing at the time."

"Leave that to me, then. You focus on the circuit boards."

"Okay. Just be prepared to get creative. The new polymer batteries are long-lasting and flexible, but most importantly for us at the moment, they do just fine in extreme temperatures. Regular batteries would die within a few minutes of being in space, if they didn't burst into flame or something on their way up."

"I understand. I'll figure it out." He already had, actually. Another reason he'd stayed up all night studying the probe was in preparation for the possibility of needing to create some of these parts himself. Jane could use her machines; he had his own methods.

"Good. It's a plan. You finished?"

"What? Dinner? Yes."

"Good. We may as well get started on the dishes."

Loki narrowed his eyes at her.

"You forgot again, didn't you."

"I don't forget. I choose not to remember."

"Whatever," Jane said, standing up with her tray. "Let's go. And no moaning about it, either."

They sorted through their recycling and trash and put away their plates and trays, and in the meantime Loki checked the announcements posted on the wall. He clenched his teeth. At this rate the wretched sun would rise again before they attempted to send something through Yggdrasil.

Half an hour later, up to his elbows in filthy, greasy water, Loki let out a small groan, watching Jane out of the corner of his eye. She didn't seem to notice. "Jane, I'm not feeling well."

"Right. Sounds like convenient timing."

"I didn't say I wouldn't finish the dishes, I just said I'm not feeling well. I'm serious. My stomach is aching."

Jane gave him a sidelong glance but quickly returned her attention to the pot she was scrubbing.

/

* * *

/

Jane heard something from inside Lucas's room after she knocked a second time, but she couldn't make it out. "What was that? Is everything okay?" she asked, raising her voice just to a normal speaking voice. Kevin, the man in the room between her and Lucas worked nights, and she wasn't sure if he was in there trying to sleep.

"Come in," she was pretty sure she heard from inside. She took a deep breath and turned the doorknob. _That _better _be what he said_, Jane thought. She was sure she'd get an earful if she barged into his room uninvited after reaming him out for doing it to her. As the door opened she bit her lip and felt oddly nervous. Lucas had been in her room three times, had helped her hang up a poster, had sat at her desk. She'd never really seen his room; the few times she'd knocked at his door and he'd opened it, he was so tall and he'd opened the door so narrowly she'd never seen past him.

Jane took in the room with the barest of glances – it was spartan and there was nothing to see, really – for her eyes were riveted on Lucas, leaning up on one elbow in bed, a dark green bedspread pooling at his waist. She'd never seen him so disheveled. His black hair, always so perfectly in place, was the definition of bedhead, locks of it sticking up in the back, falling forward into his face, and curling slightly, and his normally pale complexion had turned to alabaster, maybe because of the black pajamas he wore, but Jane suspected there was more to it. He looked like he was in pain.

"I was trying to tell you to cease that racket," he said, and she could hear the pain in his voice.

"Oh…I, uh…I thought you said 'Come in,'" Jane said with a grimace. _Yep, here we go._

"That's what I said next. And now that you've heard both things you can go." He collapsed down onto the bed on his back.

"Yeah, that's not happening. What's wrong? Do you want me to get the doc?" Jane asked, taking a few more steps into the room and letting the door close behind her. She could see now that his face was dotted with perspiration, his hair was damp with it, and his pajama top was also damp and clinging to him.

"I'm fine."

"You don't look fine, Lucas. You really don't. If you can't make it to Club Med I can ask the doc to make a house call."

"I don't need a doctor. I just need to rest a while longer. This will pass," he said, staring up at the ceiling.

Jane stood there awkwardly in silence for a moment, watching him. "You really should see Dr. Ellison. You know you can't take risks with your health here. If it gets bad, you'll-"

"Jane, I said I'm fine," he insisted, pushing himself up on his elbow again. He didn't look like he was in pain anymore, but she figured he was being stubborn and hiding it. "This happens sometimes. It will pass, if you'll just go away and let me get a few more hours of sleep. All right?"

She nodded slowly, uncertainly. It sounded like he meant he had some illness that flared up from time to time, but that he knew how to control it. If that was the case, she figured she shouldn't pry; she just wished she knew for certain that he didn't need medical attention. "Okay, but if you aren't better by lunchtime I'm going to bring Dr. Ellison down here whether you like it or not."

"I'm touched," he said sarcastically.

She shook her head and turned to go, freezing as his desk came into view. It was not only spartan, it was completely bare, not a single item on it, exactly as hers had looked when she'd first arrived. "Not even any pictures?" she blurted out, then winced. _Think first, open mouth second, Jane._

Lucas was silent long enough that she assumed he wasn't going to answer, so she continued toward the door and had her hand on the knob before he spoke.

"You were expecting family portraits?"

_Touché._ "Sorry, Lucas, none of my business. Get some sleep," she said, then slipped out. It still bothered her, though. Okay, so he wouldn't have any father-son photos up, but what about his mother? No other relatives? Friends? Anyone at all that was special to him? She thought back over the snippets of personal conversation they'd shared. She'd talked about Darcy and Erik and her parents, Thor in a vague roundabout way, one of her high school friends, Young-Soo and a few other college and grad school friends. He'd only ever mentioned his parents and two siblings, and them never by name. He'd mentioned one of his professors, once, because she brought it up.

Pausing inside the bathroom, where she'd already gathered the cleaning supplies she needed, she was hit with the strong suspicion that he really did have no one. And that broke her heart just a little.

/

* * *

/

Of course, as she crouched on her knees nearly an hour later, scrubbing a toilet, it also occurred to Jane that Lucas could be one giant faker, and _that_ thought eroded her sympathy somewhat. He'd never been sick or even had any altitude symptoms, and his illness just happened to coincide with the morning he was supposed to be in here with her performing his favorite house mouse duty. Still, he'd really looked sick, and genuinely in pain, and she supposed he would have to go to a lot of effort for such elaborate trickery, so she should probably feel guilty for doubting him. But guilt was hard to conjure when she was the only one scrubbing the toilet.

She wasn't sure how Lucas would evaluate the previous day's progress, but she suspected he was dissatisfied. He'd acted like his usual droll self with his willingness to hop on Pathfinder for a ride-to-who-knows-where right away, but she suspected there was a strong vein of truth running through his witticisms. That was dangerous, and it worried her. If he was really that desperate to make a name for himself, he could make rash decisions that would put them all in danger. Now that they had come so far in such an unexpectedly short timeframe, she was going to have to keep a close eye on him.

Jane, on the other hand, thought the day had gone better than expected. Sue had been invaluable in tracking down the various components she would need to build more tracking device transmitters, friendly Gary with years of experience machining anything and everything for the US Navy was going to be a godsend, and neither minded that she didn't provide an abundance of detail on what she needed these things for. If Lucas could solve the battery problem he would have justified his presence here in one stroke. And then there was the MCI drill, she thought with a chuckle. _That_ was going to be fun.

"Hey, Jane, you in here?"

Jane stood up and stepped out of the stall she was in; Wright was standing just inside the door. "Yeah, over here."

"Need a hand? Me and Selby finished with the little boys' room. I noticed your partner abandoned you and I thought maybe you could use some help."

"Abandoned me? Why do you say that? Did you see him?"

Wright nodded. "Headed straight past here and toward the galley."

Jane huffed. _I am choosing to think the best of people. He wasn't feeling well. He went to get something to eat, then probably back to bed._ She was trying, but she wasn't entirely sure she believed what she was telling herself. "Yeah, if you're offering, I'm not turning it down. It takes a lot longer when you're by yourself. I've got one more toilet after this one," she said, pointing to the one left, "then the showers and the floors."

Wright got busy without any of the griping that usually came from Lucas and tossed out a constant stream of jokes and quips, yet he still seemed a little subdued from his usual gregarious self. Jane couldn't blame him; her conflict with Selby had damaged her relationship with Wright more than anyone else besides Selby himself.

When they moved on to the showers, it became clear that that conflict was on his mind as well.

"So, Jane, I was thinking. I don't know what the deal is between you and Selby, but do you think you might be able to fix it? Because it kind of reminds me a little too much of high school."

Jane paused in the middle of wiping down the shower curtain. "I don't really want to talk about it."

"That's cool," Wright said from the opposite shower, without pausing or even looking up. "I don't really want to hear about it. It would just be really nice if we could all be adults here."

Jane stood up straighter and forgot all about the shower. "That's-" But then whatever words might have followed faded away and she wasn't sure what to say. _That's not true? That's not fair?_ Wright didn't understand. Selby hadn't come here to pretend to be _his_ friend so he could spy on him. But there was nothing Jane could say about it, either, not without creating trouble with SHIELD and putting the work she hadn't told them about at risk. She realized, though, that at least she no longer suspected Wright of being in league with Selby. Not much, anyway.

Wright finally stood up and faced her, scrubbing brush in his left hand. "Look, Jane…it's been good to see you getting out again, so to speak, and even Lucas came out to play a couple of days ago. I actually bet Austin a bottle of Scotch he'd say no. So this thing where you and Selby can't hardly be in the same room together… I mean, really? What are we, twelve? Man up and fix it, Foster. No offense."

"None taken," Jane said almost automatically; Wright nodded his head once and got back to work. Jane did the same, but she was distracted. The words had stung. She didn't think she'd been _childish_ about the whole thing. A few comments may have smacked of something less than total maturity, but surely some allowances could be made when a secretive organization was following you around and trying to control your life.

_But…_ But at the same time, in so many ways, none of this was like her. She didn't avoid people. She didn't avoid confrontation. Lucas had told her…but she couldn't blame Lucas. She'd made her own decisions. And she'd let her world shrink down to just Lucas and work. Letting herself get monopolized by work, _that_ was like her. Letting herself get monopolized by one _person_, that was _not_ like her. She'd come down here, and strange things she wasn't used to dealing with had happened, and she'd somehow forgotten who she was.

She'd called Selby on being a spy in front of practically the entire station at the sunset concert, even if only she, Lucas, and Selby himself would have understood the message. She'd thought he might even admit the truth of his own volition after that. She'd already crossed a line – the line that, probably, meant that SHIELD now also knew that she knew what they were up to. So why not bring it out into the open? Ask him directly about it, give him a chance to be honest. Maybe, if the lie were removed, things could get a little more comfortable between them. After all, she'd learned to get along with Peter and a couple of the others in SHIELD's little Tromso set-up…because they didn't hide the fact that part of their job was to keep an eye on her.

"I can't make any promises, but I'll try, okay?" she said, running a sponge over the shower's surfaces for a quick final rinse.

"Can't ask for more than that," Wright said. "But try hard."

Jane acknowledged the comment with a smile and a nod of mock obedience that Wright didn't even see as she stepped out of the shower with her bucket and other supplies and went for the mop. Selby was almost done with his shower, and all that was left was the floor. "Did you give that little speech to Selby, too?" she asked.

"Yep."

"And what did he say?"

"Been to high school once, Foster. Not doing it again."

"All right, all right. I'll go find him as soon as I'm done here," Jane said, dunking the mop in the bucket.

"I'll do the floor and put away all the supplies. You go fix things. You need to talk to your other half, too. This is his job."

"He was sick."

"He didn't look sick when _I_ saw him."

"O_kay_, Wright, lay off." Jane grimaced and sighed; Wright raised his eyebrows and shuffled his feet. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap. It's just…Lucas isn't always easy to deal with. But I'm trying to take it easy on him. He's had kind of a rough life."

"Seemed just the opposite to me."

"I know…but…things aren't always what they seem on the surface, you know? Thanks for asking him to play darts with you, by the way. Did he seem like he enjoyed it?"

"Yeah." He took the mop out of Jane's hands and let the head hit the floor with a plop. "He was all like _'Might you possibly remind me of the rules of this game I've hardly ever heard of before?'_" he said, mimicking Lucas's accent badly. "And then he got better and better and by the third round he was doing better than Austin, and Austin's good. Hardly said a word the whole time, though. He's pretty intense."

Jane nodded. "Yeah, I think he must get that a lot. Well, thanks for asking him. He doesn't make friends easily."

"He's sure not going to make any by blowing off his house mouse work."

"He really did look sick early this morning. But I hear you. Do you know where Selby's working?"

"Science Lab."

Jane thanked Wright for his help and went off to find Selby, all the way second-guessing her decision to confront him.

/

* * *

/

Loki hurried down the hallway, hoping no one would see him. But of course, Wright emerged from the men's room just before Loki passed by, giving him no more than a glance as he continued on out into the main corridor. A tiny incident, but one that nevertheless made him seethe on the inside. Because he shouldn't have to worry about things like that. He was perfectly capable of making himself invisible, so capable of it he could do it in his sleep. He'd learned that skill, and a number of equally useful ones, during a period of his life long ago when he'd had an excessive amount of enforced time on his hands. The useful had become useless, though, unless he was willing to pay the price.

He'd already paid once today, making himself look next to death so he wouldn't waste yet another large chunk of a day performing meaningless tasks – especially not _that_ task. The pain meted out for this particular use of magic, apparently deemed unacceptable by Odin's curse (as he'd expected, he grudgingly admitted to himself), had been no more or less than any other, but the net result was adding up. His own body, and his ability or lack thereof to change its form, continued to indicate that his control of magic lessened with each broken rule. And while he was still able to effect the changes he'd made for Jane's benefit earlier this morning, he found that it had required more effort than expected.

So, no, there could be no use of invisibility here. It irritated him, but he was in fact getting better at predicting what would activate the curse and what would not. If he made himself invisible he would invoke it, because he would be trying to _deceive someone for your own selfish gain with disregard for the others around you_ – this thought came to him in Odin's self-righteous voice and brought a sneer to his face. On the other hand, if he blanketed his chambers against all sound, as he did every night he slept, he was merely ensuring a good night's rest for himself and potentially for his neighbors. No curse.

He settled down into a familiar spot in the computer room, empty at the moment as it often was. As he waited to get logged on, he reconsidered how he'd cast his decision to allow no sound in or out of his chambers. It was a lie. A lie to himself, a lie to convince Odin, or his curse, or his enchantment, or the five ugly marks on the sole of his right foot, however this particular bit of magic worked. He didn't do it to keep noise out. By the time he allowed himself sleep he was so tired a bilgesnipe could come crashing through the station and he would sleep right through it. He certainly didn't do it to avoid disturbing his neighbors. If he disturbed their sleep they should be grateful that was _all _he did to them.

He did it because of the nightmares. They were not uncommon, and he sometimes woke from them with a shout. And they were no one's affair but his own. He'd left guilt behind when he first arrived in Midgard, and he'd done his best to abandon weakness and fear along with it. But he had no control over his dreams, and what stemmed from that lack of control he would not – could not – allow anyone else to glimpse. He could barely acknowledge it himself. At least no more threats had been whispered in his ear during his dreams; he was no longer even certain he hadn't simply manufactured that grating voice himself. Just another nightmare. Not a message. His regular dreams he could manage, as long as they remained _his_. He was protecting himself, with no hidden motive of harming or deceiving or tricking another.

Odin _was_ teaching him, he realized. He couldn't remember the last time he'd examined his own motives in something that thoroughly. Before, he'd conceded that he would have to play by Odin's game, to consider whether each use of magic would harm him, but he'd seen it as little more than that: a game. If Jane could see him now, he would need no magic to convince her he felt sick. He swallowed hard and willed himself not to vomit at the thought of what Odin had done to him, at the extent to which Odin was managing to control him, all through two tiny little "tricks," as Thor would call them. No. Thor's beloved father was responsible, so in this case Thor would surely deign to follow Odin's example and call them "enchantments." _Dear Father,_ he began, forcing the thoughts into crystal clear words thicker with scorn than ever, _congratulations_, _you have succeeded in teaching me something at long last. I commend you on the creativity of your pedagogical methods. I am compelled to inform you, however, that I must reject the content of the lesson, and very soon I will prove to you that I am as capable of forgetting a lesson as I am of learning one._

Loki quickly went through Jane's e-mails, struggling to maintain his concentration through waves of anger and bitterness and the sting of being bested by Odin, echoed by surging resolve to get off this backwater planet as soon as possible and show Odin who would be bested in the end.

He paused only over an incoming e-mail from her Australian friend that said he had won a teaching position based on Jane's connection to Albuquerque. It sounded like an attempt at humor, but still he looked up Albuquerque and found it was a city west of Puente Antiguo, in the same state of New Mexico. The detail didn't seem significant, regardless.

After logging out of the computer, Lucas left the computer room and headed down the corridor to the galley for a cup of tea to take back to his room where he planned to study the special battery the probe's transmitter used; he'd retrieved a battery from one of the probes last night and hidden it in his room, then stayed up all night examining it.

He was still on edge, still angry when he rounded the corner past the recycling bins and tray drop-off and saw Jane and Selby sitting together, alone. He only barely stopped himself from instinctively making himself invisible, and instead withdrew slowly, silently. They hadn't seen him. He strained his hearing, but there were too many noises coming from kitchen equipment and workers preparing lunch, and he couldn't make out anything more than the occasional syllable or two. Whatever they were talking about, it wasn't casual. It was serious. It was a problem. Again. As though Jane had forgotten everything he'd said to her about Selby.

This would not do at all. Selby had some kind of connection to SHIELD, perhaps only indirect; he hadn't been able to find out for certain. But whatever it was, if Jane's newfound desire to ignore her suspicions and befriend every last person here extended to Selby, that was a risk he couldn't tolerate.

His face hardened. Curse Number One prevented a permanent solution to this re-emerging problem. Another idea occurred to him, and he returned to the computer room.

* * *

/

_Thank you for all of your reviews and comments, please know that I really value them, and love and appreciate you all, regular reviewers, new reviewers, guest reviewers. You really do make my day. Thank you also to all of you that I don't hear from but are still reading this - this story is quite the long haul so thanks for sticking with it! Please know that, in case you ever doubted it, there *is* an ending that this is all moving toward; I'm not making it up as I go along with no end in sight. I think - I hope! - that your patience will be rewarded._

_Teasers for Ch. 30: Friends: Relationships are reassessed; Loki is unsettled by the station's nighttime appearance; Loki and Jane have probably their worst argument yet; a decision is put in Loki's hands that he may not be ready or willing to make._

_And excerpt (ah, it's not that great of one...but hard to pull one from this chapter):_

They spent the afternoon and into the evening working quickly and efficiently despite the tension, simply because they'd been working so closely together for so long that the habits for accomplishing the work remained in place even when the communication dropped to almost non-existent. Loki appreciated the efficiency except that it counted for nothing toward his objective, but the current atmosphere in the Dark Sector Lab grated on him in a thousand different ways. His jaw began to ache from how tightly he was holding it the whole time.

Jane's stomach growled, and even _that_ annoyed him. When it happened a second time, he couldn't keep his silence. "Why don't you do something about that?" he asked testily.


	31. (30) Friends

_Those of you reading this "real-time," uhhhh, yes, I wrote the next chapter (31, possibly titled "Precipice") in like two days, so you're getting a quick update. Can you tell I'm eager? A number of you have said in reviews that you can't wait until Jane finds out the truth? And my response is always a heartfelt "Me either!". A number of things are going to come to a head very soon..._

* * *

**Beneath**

**Chapter Thirty – Friends**

"This has gone on long enough. It's time for you to tell me why you're really here."

Selby stared back at Jane. He blinked, his brow furrowed almost imperceptibly, but otherwise he didn't react.

Jane decided to wait him out. She didn't want to make this easy on him, or tell him exactly what she knew or how she knew it. She'd found him in the Science Lab just as Wright had said, and he was clearly surprised when she wanted to talk to him alone in the galley. Jane thought a public place would be best…just in case.

"I'm sorry, I have no idea what you're talking about," Selby said after the silence lingered for at least a full minute.

"Don't play dumb, Selby. You have to know that I know."

"I don't know what you know. What you think you know. I don't know what you're talking about."

"Did you really go to CalTech?" she asked, pointing to the gray sweatshirt with orange CalTech logo he was wearing.

"What?" he asked, glancing down at his shirt. When his head came back up his brow was heavily furrowed. "What are you…Jane, what's this about?"

"Just drop the act, okay? I know you're here to spy on me."

Selby's mouth fell open and stayed that way for a long moment. He ran a hand through his thinning brown hair. "I…uh…I really don't even know what to say to that."

"Try the truth."

More staring, more silence. Jane had really expected him to come clean more easily than this.

"I'm here to work on the South Pole Telescope for the University of Chicago, Jane. There's nothing secret about it. I'm not here to spy on anybody. Does this have to do with…" – he paused and glanced around, lowering his voice when he continued – "is this about what I told you I knew about SHIELD?"

"You know exactly what it's about. Lucas and I don't keep things from each other. So can we please just…just stop playing games?"

Selby shook his head. "Lucas? What does…did he tell you about the rumors?"

"What rumors?" Jane asked suspiciously. _Why won't he just admit it?!_

"About us. About…about something going on between us. I didn't want you to have to hear about that," he said with a grimace.

"What are you…" Jane's voice trailed off. Wright had said he felt like he was back in high school. _Does he think there's something between me and Selby?_ _That's ridiculous._ _No…it doesn't matter. That's not what we're here for._ "You're trying to confuse the issue. Look, I'm used to them constantly looking over my shoulder. I'm just not used to them lying about it. Although I guess I should be," she added, remembering the ruse that had sent her to the observatory outside Tromso. "So just tell me the truth."

"There's nothing to tell. I'm not here to…to spy on you, or whatever it is you're thinking. I'm just a post-doc, and I've never had any contact with SHIELD. I told you everything I knew about that. There's nothing more to it. Wait, is that why you requested _Secret Agent Man_? You think I'm some kind of secret agent? Jane, that's…that's really outlandish."

Jane continued to press, and Selby continued to deny. Jane soon gave up and walked off with a huff. She had tried. But if Selby wouldn't come clean, she couldn't "fix it," as Wright had put it. At least now she could give up all pretense of not knowing the truth.

/

* * *

/

_Dr. Selby Higgins,_

_I must inform you that it has come to our attention that you have become privy to classified information for which you have not been approved, and that you have been leaking this classified information to others. As soon as aircraft are able to land safely at your location, we will dispatch a private flight to bring you in for consultations. We advise that you immediately cease contact with anyone you have been discussing classified information with, and that you make no long-term plans following your time at the South Pole. We look forward to meeting with you._

_SHIELD Security Operations_

Loki's finger rested over the mouse, the cursor over the "send" button. He wanted to press the finger down. No magic. No consequences. Just the same SHIELD e-mail account he'd set up back in Melfort to inform Jane of her new assistant. He wanted Selby out of the way. Selby was a distraction for Jane, and thus a barrier between him and his freedom. And Selby knew _something_, somehow. The message was vague enough, he hoped, to have the intended effect no matter what kind of connection to SHIELD Selby had.

Jane could be out there right now, desperate for friends, begging Selby's forgiveness, and telling him all about how Lucas had said he'd been surreptitiously asking about Jane and her work and SHIELD. Who would Jane believe, when Selby denied he'd done this? Loki hoped he'd done his job well enough that she would believe Lucas, but he'd learned Jane was no fool and would question his story. There was little more he could say or do to convince Jane. But there was much he could do to Selby, and he'd wanted to toy with that man almost from the first time he'd met him and seen his insecurities. He suspected Selby would never say a word to Jane again after receiving this e-mail.

But if he clicked "send," it would be a rash decision. He didn't _know_ what Selby and Jane were talking about. He didn't know if they were becoming best friends and Jane was telling him all about Pathfinder. He didn't know if they were comparing notes on everything Lucas had told them and finding unsettling inconsistencies. He didn't know if they were simply sharing memories of their beloved CalTech or otherwise calling a truce with no unfortunate revelations at all. Rash decisions had gotten him into trouble. They were not normally his domain, but Thor's… Loki sighed and shook his head. A losing battle, indeed.

He saved the e-mail as a draft and logged out. He did not need to learn from anyone else's mistakes; he could learn from his own. He hurried back to his chambers to study the lithium jelly battery and "recover" for Jane's inevitable knock on his door. He wasn't sure what the Midgardian healer would find if she examined him, so it would be best if Jane did not make good on her threat to bring her to his room.

/

* * *

/

It was nearly 11:00 when Jane knocked on Lucas's door again. The response was not immediate, but much quicker than when she'd first knocked on his door this morning. She got a clearer "come in" than before, and found Lucas sitting up in bed, same black pajamas, but he looked much more like himself, much better than before.

"Feeling better?"

"Much."

"So, uh, you've been sleeping all this time, then? I hope I didn't wake you."

"I went for some tea earlier, then I dozed off for a while again."

"Oh," Jane said with a nod, relieved that it didn't sound like he'd been faking. Then she cringed. Because that kind of meant she was relieved he was sick. "You should have told me you wanted tea before. I could have gotten it for you," she said, sincerely but prompted by guilt.

He waved a hand to the side. "Not necessary. But thank you. Do the bathrooms gleam? I was heartbroken to miss out on the fun."

"Oh, really? I'm so glad you said that. I actually saved your half of the bathroom, so as soon as you're up and dressed you can get to work," she said with a raised eyebrow.

"I shall get on it at once." He clearly didn't believe her, but she hadn't been trying hard anyway.

"Okay, well…I want to go check my e-mail before I lose the window again, and then maybe we can have lunch a little early? 11:30? And then get to work."

Lucas agreed – Jane hadn't expected anything different. "Are you all right? You seem a little…unsettled, perhaps?" he then asked.

"I do?" Jane didn't think she'd given anything away, but she _was_ upset. She nodded reluctantly. "I got into an argument with Selby," she said, sticking her left thumb over her shoulder toward Selby's room across the hall. "Not a huge deal, I guess…I just thought I could get him to admit what he's doing. I don't understand why he won't, when it's obvious I already know about it."

"Some people find the truth difficult to face," Lucas said from atop the raised bed.

"I guess so," Jane said, wondering if maybe Selby was embarrassed about his duplicity. In the end it really didn't matter, though. There was nothing more she could do about it. She excused herself and went back to her room to get in a little computer time.

She had several new e-mails, including good news from Young-Soo that he'd gotten the teaching job he applied for. She was relieved to see, in case SHIELD were monitoring her e-mail, that he remembered their previously agreed-upon code word for Asgard; she'd told him about all of that days after Thor's first departure, before SHIELD's edict not to ever discuss Asgard or, later, the tesseract.

She thought about sending an e-mail to someone in SHIELD, _the cat's out of the bag_, but there was really no point. Selby was probably sending the same e-mail right now. Jane shook her head and logged out of her e-mail. _Keep your distance from Selby, keep secret what you need to keep secret, live your life,_ she told herself.

/

* * *

/

Loki was eager to go to lunch; he wasn't that hungry but an early lunch meant he and Jane could finally get out and get to work. All the realms, though – or at the very least the residents of the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station – seemed to be conspiring against him, and he was losing patience. Jane was insisting they go to the DSL and work on her _other_ data.

"I refuse. You've outlined the tasks we need to accomplish to be able to send something through Yggdrasil with a trans-"

"Shhhh!" Jane looked around the galley to make sure no one had overheard. "Yes, but I'm _days_ behind my normal schedule to send in data and preliminary analysis. Almost a week now. And you said you would help."

"I changed my mind. We're so _close_, Jane. How can you set it aside to work on things that don't matter? If you're days behind now, what's a few more days?"

Jane stared back at him, her face slowly changing from the bright impassioned look she had when she argued to a harder version of that kicked-in-the-gut look that made him distinctly uncomfortable. He knew instantly what he'd said that had caused it, and wished he'd chosen his words more carefully. "I don't mean it doesn't matter. I mean it doesn't matter for our current purposes. For our immediate goal. What's wrong with letting it wait a little while longer?"

She was shaking her head; he could see her jaw working. She was mad. "I'm not having this argument with you anymore, Lucas. Seriously. You know, I was joking yesterday about being the lead researcher, but you seem to have forgotten, I actually _am_ the lead researcher. At the end of the day this is _my_ project, which means _I'm_ in charge. You're here to assist, not to take control over everything, not to make all the decisions, and not to argue over every one of _my_ decisions. Are we clear?"

He waited long enough to let her see his anger, to let her know what he thought about _her_ being in charge of anything. "Perfectly." _If you only knew who you were talking to, dear Jane Foster. I challenge you to speak those words again then._

"Okay. Then…let's finish lunch and get out to the DSL. The sooner we can put together a package of data from my other instruments to send off to SISI, the sooner we can work on replicating the transmitter." She maintained eye contact for a moment longer before looking down at her chicken and rice to continue her meal.

Loki continued staring. He knew what he'd shown her. He knew she'd been affected by it before. He'd made SHIELD warriors twitch with a single look. _Am I no longer capable of frightening this frail mortal? Of anyone?_ Stark had called him "neutered," after the manacles had gone on. He'd been wrong, but it hadn't been in Loki's best interest then to prove it. _What am I now, with these invisible shackles? Reduced to reading e-mails and arguing with a mortal and pretending to be sick as if I were a _child_?!_

He took a deep breath that he tried to keep silent, and placed his hands under the table so that their trembling could not be seen. He had to remind himself again that losing his temper would do him no good. Jane was cooperating without coercion – without physical coercion, anyway. Not as single-mindedly as he would like anymore, but cooperating nonetheless. Even shackled, even "neutered," he'd accomplished that much, and because of it he would soon be free of this realm as well as his shackles.

Jane didn't understand. She couldn't understand. And he couldn't tell her any more that he already had to try to make her understand. It was safer for him if she didn't know who he was; it was probably safer for her as well.

Loki took his fork and forced himself to resume his meal. They finished eating in silence.

/

* * *

/

They spent the afternoon and into the evening working quickly and efficiently despite the tension, simply because they'd been working so closely together for so long that the habits for accomplishing the work remained in place even when the communication dropped to almost non-existent. Loki appreciated the efficiency except that it counted for nothing toward his objective, but the current atmosphere in the Dark Sector Lab grated on him in a thousand different ways. His jaw began to ache from how tightly he was holding it the whole time.

Jane's stomach growled, and even _that_ annoyed him. When it happened a second time, he couldn't keep his silence. "Why don't you do something about that?" he asked testily.

"I will when we're finished here."

He glanced up at her just long enough to note she didn't lift her head from her computer when she responded. A few minutes later her stomach rumbled again; this time she did meet his eyes briefly, but he couldn't tell if she was still angry or annoyed or just warning him not to say anything again.

"Just go, Jane. If you hurry you can still make it to the galley before it closes. We're almost done. I'll finish up here."

"You don't have to-"

"I _know_ I don't have to. But the lead researcher's empty stomach is interfering with my ability to concentrate. And I would like to finish this tonight."

Jane sat back and sighed, then rolled her chair around to directly face Lucas over the short filing cabinets that separated their workstations. "Lucas…." She waited until he turned to face her as well. "I apologize for pulling rank so hard on you back there. That's really not my style. You just… You have to recognize that we have responsibilities here besides Yggdrasil. Things that we're accountable for, or really that _I'm_ accountable for and through me you are too, because somebody else paid for all this, and I signed paperwork saying what I'd be working on and what my deliverables were and… Can you just please tell me you understand that?"

Half of him shouted that her paperwork and her deliverables were irrelevant, that if she wanted she could go back to them all she liked _after_ he made it to Svartalfheim. The other half of him – the more rational half that thankfully won out – shouted only one word, a reminder of the role he was playing: _Lucas_. "I understand it. But sometimes I dislike being reminded of it," he said. "I have my reasons, Jane," he added quietly, letting some of the layers fall away, letting the lines blur between Lucas and Loki again. He wasn't even certain if he'd done it intentionally or not; it had just slipped out.

"I get that. Really, I do. And I can kind of relate. I know what it's like to have something to prove. We'll get there. What we've discovered already is…it really is nothing short of revolutionary, Lucas. And I couldn't have done it without you. You were the one who first came up with the idea that we were looking at some kind of ancient pre-existing wormhole. We're already so much closer to the possibility of wormhole travel now than I thought we would be even by the time we left here. A few days' delay here and there so that we can fulfill our other responsibilities really doesn't cost us anything. And…honestly, I kind of worry about you. I worry that you'll do something rash."

Loki cleared his suddenly dry throat. Sometimes it really did seem almost like she could read his mind – it was unsettling. "How about this? I promise not to do anything rash tonight while you have dinner."

Jane agreed and started shutting down her computer. "You can send the data package to SISI in the morning," she said as she gathered up her sweater and her backpack.

Loki froze, for just a fraction of a second. "It's best if you continue to send it, Jane. You _are_ the lead researcher, after all."

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fine, I'll send it. Make sure you get some supper."

Loki nodded but didn't look up. He listened for the rustling sounds of her getting into her gear, then the door as it opened and closed behind her. And then he finally allowed himself a sigh of relief. Relief that she hadn't tried to insist he send an e-mail to a group of people who'd never heard of Lucas Cane, relief that the thicker-than-usual tension seemed to have largely dissipated, relief that she was gone and he could finish this pointless work and shift his attention back where it needed to be.

/

* * *

/

At a little past 8:00 Loki left the Dark Sector Lab, his black satchel with his mother's means of escape and his own – the battery he kept with him to study every chance he got – slung over his head and under one arm as always. He no longer wore the goggles, since they were intended to protect against the intense solar radiation here and not the cold, and as a result his vision was much clearer, unobstructed by fogging. He paused for a moment at the bottom of the stairs, just taking in the view. The only word that came to mind to describe it was _eerie_. The Dark Sector was beginning to earn its name. It was not completely dark yet, but red floodlights at the station and active outbuildings, including the DSL, had already been turned on for additional light. They used red light, he'd learned, because it interfered the least with light-sensitive scientific equipment, such as one of the lens filters Jane planned to set up the next day for her friend in Australia. He'd somehow forced himself not to react to news of that impending further delay.

There was something about the look of the place, now that the red lights had gone on. The twilight, the endless ice, the red lights…a shiver went up his spine. Red lights. Red eyes. Fiendish red eyes with small soulless pupils. His stomach churned. He remembered the last time he'd looked into eyes like that, right before he'd dealt a killing blow to the creature who'd spawned him. But how many times since had he seen eyes like that in his dreams…

_Midgard. Not Jotunheim_, he told himself harshly as he swallowed down bile and hatred.

The shiver returned and grew into a shudder. Standing still out here was probably not a good idea; he started off toward the red lights of the station. According to the station's intranet site, which he'd checked before shutting down at the DSL, it was -65 degrees, with a wind chill of -89. His balaclava had already turned crunchy with ice formed from his breath. And it would only get worse. He skin wasn't truly cold – the Extreme Cold Weather gear was highly effective and he could hardly believe he'd once gone without it – but something much deeper was very cold indeed. He couldn't fathom why anyone would actually want to live here. He would take any of the places he'd seen elsewhere in Midgard over this.

Loki wasn't sure he could take food at the moment, and it would be nothing but microwaved leftovers at this point anyway, but he decided he'd get that cup of tea he'd intended to get in the morning. He got up the stairs and inside, discarding layers at the door down to the Carhartt overalls which he left on, since he had "bold choice" seersucker slacks on underneath them. Jane could say what she liked; they were comfortable and looked good, even if no one saw them but him.

He didn't expect anyone to be in the galley other than perhaps a few stragglers like himself, but when he rounded the corner he found a small crowd of about ten somber-looking people, including Jane, gathered over by the coffee machine and the hot water dispenser he'd need for his tea. He hesitated; Jane noticed him there at the edge of the room and came over to speak to him.

"What's going on?"

"Gary just got a sat phone call-"

"Gary the machinist?"

"Right. He just found out his dad had a heart attack, and it looks pretty bad. They're not sure he's going to make it. We're going to give up our bandwidth tomorrow so he can make a video call home during the next satellite pass. Oh, I guess that means we could've waited another day to prepare that data to send back to SISI after all. We won't be able to send it tomorrow. It takes up way too much bandwidth."

"Oh…well, it's all ready for you to send anyway, as soon as you're able," Loki said, his gaze still drawn to the little knot of people. He could tell who Gary was now, the one who was clearly the center of attention. He could only see a little of him, in profile, but he was a largish middle-aged man, in Midgardian terms, with graying hair and a bushy mustache. Loki had seen him around, but hadn't known his name or job. He understood why everyone looked so full of sympathy for the man. He would probably want to be with his family, to see his father, but just as there was no longer a way into the South Pole, there was no longer a way out of it, either. If Gary's father were to die, it would be without seeing his son in person again.

"Are you okay?" Jane asked.

Loki looked down at her, surprised. "Yes, of course."

"It's just…you looked kind of upset. I figured you were thinking about your father."

He blinked heavily as his gaze fell further downward. He hadn't been thinking of his father, not really. Perhaps in some abstract sense. He wasn't even sure who he was supposed to think of when he thought of "father." The word still reflexively called to mind a stern image of Odin, but sometimes behind it came a repulsive image of Laufey. He had experienced a "father's" uncertain health and a "father's" death all at the same time, and he'd been the cause of both, if only one intentionally.

Jane was still waiting, staring up at him expectantly. He had to say _something_ to explain whatever feelings – betrayals – had exposed themselves on his face that she had seen. "My father fell ill once," he said, settling on something essentially true, as usual. He vividly remembered sitting at Odin's bedside in the chamber set aside for the Odinsleep, watched over by the ravens Hugin and Munin day and night. Hoping he would wake. Hoping he would not. Consumed by countless other thoughts, all similarly in conflict with one another, struggling to make sense out of them. Until Gungnir was placed in his hands, and suddenly everything made sense.

"You still love him, don't you?"

Loki's eyes snapped sharply back to hers. He looked for – and for a split second thought he found – taunts or pleading or derision or pandering, but none of that was really there. There was no guile in her expression, none in her tone. His mouth opened and he didn't know what was going to come out of it until it did. "I love…I love a child's memory." He sucked in a quick breath through his nose afterward and quickly averted his gaze; it fell on the crowd offering Gary its sympathies or encouragements or whatever other expressions of sentiment. If he _had_ thought about it in advance, he wouldn't have said _that_. He wasn't sure if it was true, or even precisely what it meant. Of _course_ he had loved Odin as a child. He'd been ignorant and gullible and naïve…he'd been a _child_. He had believed. He had trusted. He had loved. He felt his throat tightening and swallowed hard.

"Hey, you came here to get something to eat, right? We had salmon in a teriyaki sauce tonight, it was pretty good."

Loki looked back at her again, wondering how she knew not to ask. He wouldn't have answered any more questions. He didn't _have_ any more answers, even were he inclined to answer more questions. Her face was entirely open, hiding nothing. Gentle and smooth where he felt rough and ragged and like he would shatter her at the slightest touch. His face hid everything. And nothing at the same time, for once.

He cleared his throat. This had to stop. He was on the side of a mountain rapidly losing his footing and he could not afford to fall. There was too much – _too much_ – inside him coiled and churning and dangerous. "I…" He cleared his throat again. It had gone so dry. "I only wanted a cup of tea, actually. It doesn't matter. I don't-"

"I'll get it. I'll get us both a cup. Stay, okay? Stay and sit with me for a while."

"Jane-"

"Please?"

He sighed. He wanted to exit this room for the privacy of his own, but he needed to stay on good terms with Jane. He had worked to keep her attention solely on him, so that he could shape his key as needed, and after a period of wandering she was focused on him again, at least for now, if not precisely in the way he would have chosen. He relented. He could accept this. But he couldn't let her go on dredging up ancient memories and childish emotions.

Jane got the hot water, tea bags, and packets of sugar and fake sugar – which he detested but she preferred – and made her way over to the table he'd taken a seat at. Gary and his group of supporters were dispersing.

They sat there sipping from steaming mugs, Jane a decaffeinated cinnamon-scented blend and Loki caffeinated black tea, since caffeine only affected him in very large doses. Neither spoke for a couple of minutes, and Loki used the silence to refocus his thoughts onto the same thing he always did – escaping this realm and ridding himself of Odin's curses.

"You know, he's your father, Lucas. Even if he did terrible things…it's only natural that you still love him, in some way. There's no shame in that."

Loki swallowed tea that no longer scalded and kept himself from reacting visibly. She was right, and she was wrong. The word "shame" echoed in his mind. It was little different from guilt. So she was right there. He had no need of shame or of guilt, not any longer. But she was wrong in thinking that he still loved his "father." He loved no one, except his mother, and even that was no longer the thing of blind innocence it once had been. "I don't wish to speak of it anymore, Jane," he finally said.

"Okay," she said with an easy nod. "If you ever do want to talk about it…I can be a good listener."

They fell into silence again, and Loki found himself wondering if Jane had thought about her own family when she learned what happened to Gary. He supposed it was a natural reflex, albeit one he hoped to be able to break. "Do you think of your parents often?" he asked after another moment passed.

She looked surprised, but he wasn't sure why – it was just a question. "Uhhh, yeah. Yeah, I do. I guess…it depends on what's going on, but something makes me think of one or both of them almost every day."

_Almost every day._ And they'd been gone for about half her life. If he extrapolated the ratio instead of the absolute number of years into his own life, it would be at least another millennium for him. It felt like a third curse. "Do you ever wish you could forget?"

"Forget what exactly?"

"Never mind," he said swiftly. He never should have said that. He was supposed to be turning the conversation toward her, not right back on himself. She was having some kind of effect on him, almost like magic, her own form of manipulation. He told himself to stop talking about himself, to stop saying things to her he wasn't sure he could say aloud to himself in an empty room.

She let the silence hang, but if she was waiting for him to say anything more on the subject she would be spending the night in the galley.

"Lucas…will you let me contact your mother for you?"

His eyes went wide for a moment before he regained control of himself. He was quite certain he would have choked had he been in the middle of eating.

"Not from here, obviously, I mean I guess it could be traced back to you, but after we leave. She must be so worried about you. I could just write to her, or call her, whatever, and tell her you're fine, that you're doing important work that you love."

"No."

"She doesn't even know if you're dead or alive. Just let me tell her you're alive and well. Please, let me do this for you. For her. I won't say anything about your new name, or where you go to school, or-"

"No," he repeated, more sharply this time. He expected to be angry. He _wanted_ to be angry. But it wasn't there. She was looking up at him with soft brown eyes, earnest and open and kind. The anger wouldn't come, and he couldn't understand it. Couldn't understand why she would want to do such a thing for him in the first place. It wasn't as though he'd ever done anything for her, other than perhaps say a few complimentary words about her work, and those words hadn't exactly sprung from sincere, heartfelt compassion. _"You are incapable of sincerity," _Thor had said. Perhaps he was right after all.

"Jane…no. You can't. But I…it's kind of you to offer." _And I don't deserve it. Not after everything I've done to you._

She looked inexplicably heartbroken, and it was maddening. _Why should you care? It isn't _your_ family, for which you should be grateful. There is nothing between us, nothing to make you care, beyond a little sympathy. Not love, not family, not…_

"What?" Jane asked.

Loki realized he'd been fixing her with a rather inquisitive open stare. "Nothing."

"No, what? Tell me."

Loki considered it. It wouldn't do any harm. It might even help. "I was just thinking…are we friends?"

She looked stunned and immediately tried to mask her reaction; he felt like a simpleton and did the same. "Well…" she began. "I guess I kind of got the impression that you don't…that you don't really _let_ people be friends with you. But I'd _like_ to be your friend, Lucas."

His eyes flickered down to his empty teacup. That wasn't at all the answer he'd expected. He'd thought perhaps an "_of course we are_," or an "_it's best if we maintain a strictly professional relationship_," either of which he could have nodded and smiled and agreed to. Instead she had maneuvered _him_ into choosing, and it both angered and impressed him; he couldn't have played it better himself.

She would be his friend _if_ he wanted her to be. _If_ he would let her be. And even if he didn't, even if he wouldn't, she wanted to contact his mother and assure her of his well-being, for no reason other than simple concern for a co-worker. She had seen glimpses of pain and she wanted to ease it, while seeking nothing in return.

And suddenly he knew. He knew what Thor saw in her. More importantly, he knew exactly what she had done to Thor. He had already acknowledged a certain respect for her work ethic and her aspirations toward greater knowledge – these were not likely the things that drew Thor to her, he thought. But he had watched how she danced, and although it was all rather silly and undignified, there was something beautiful in the silliness, in the way she smiled and threw her head back and closed her eyes as though she hadn't a care in the world. And now there was her kindness toward someone who hadn't been terribly kind to her – if only she knew just how unkind! – her desire to mend a broken relationship. He'd thought long ago that perhaps she was the type who liked to fix broken things. He'd been right. She'd taken her smoothness and worn away the edges of Thor's roughness, turning him soft and filling him with misguided sentiment. And now she was doing that to _him_.

He couldn't let that happen.

_If you really knew me, you wouldn't want to be my friend anyway._

Loki glanced up at the television screen hanging above Jane's head. It was past 9:00. "It's getting late. I'm going to turn in," he said with a perfunctory smile. He stood up with his tea cup and left without a backward glance.

/

* * *

/

Jane stared after Lucas as he disappeared around the corner, feeling like she'd just made a major misstep.

She didn't always understand Lucas. She didn't even always _like_ Lucas. But she knew she'd said the wrong thing. She shouldn't have tried to make a point. She should have just said _yes_.

* * *

/

_Thanks for reading, thanks for reviewing!  
_

_Teasers from Chapter 31 (possibly titled "Precipice"): With just three days remaining before King Gullveig's two-week deadline elapses, all of Asgard is busy with preparations, and Thor isn't sure he can get away to hear Tony's update; Frigga reflects on her sons and wonders if there's something she can do to help Loki; Loki watches a movie and probably wishes he hadn't whipped out that Melfort Mustangs baseball cap._

_And excerpt:  
_

[Loki] left "Club Med," as the Midgardians apparently called their healing rooms, at around 10:00 in the morning. It was his first trip to this room, right next to the galley, and if he didn't make it off Midgard soon he'd be back to it next week strapped down to a spine board. If he needed any further motivation that would do it; he had a strong aversion to being strapped down to anything. He hadn't realized all that he was agreeing to when Jane had volunteered him to play one of the victims.


	32. (31) Precipice

**Beneath**

Chapter Thirty-One – Precipice

The next morning, Friday, March 26, the delays continued, with Loki's mandatory attendance at a meeting of the trauma team. Even if he ignored the fact he still hoped to have left Midgard before the actual Mass Casualty Incident drill, unannounced but scheduled for sometime next week, and the fact that if there _were_ mass casualties – and he hadn't caused them in the first place – his priority certainly wasn't going to be providing medical treatment for the mortals, it all still seemed like a colossal waste of time. He wasn't going to be providing medical treatment even in the drill. Apparently he was going to be pretending to be unconscious in an unspecified location, hidden by fake smoke. He was mildly curious how the Midgardians made fake smoke – he knew it wouldn't be the way _he_ did it – but other than that he could muster no interest in the meeting whatsoever this time.

Nonetheless, by the time the meeting ended, with its hands-on review of equipment and techniques, Loki realized with no small bit of irony that if he happened across an injured mortal and were so inclined, he would stand a good chance at being able to extend that mortal's life by a few years without any magic at all.

On Sunday he and the other two victims (it seemed that at the South Pole "three" counted as "mass casualties") would be told when and where to report for their accident and what symptoms to pretend to have. Dr. Ellison had asked him if he could keep a secret. He merely said yes, but could not restrain his smile as he imagined putting his answer instead in the form of transforming his clothing into something much more recognizable. Yes, he could keep a secret.

He left "Club Med," as the Midgardians apparently called their healing rooms, at around 10:00 in the morning. It was his first trip to this room, right next to the galley, and if he didn't make it off Midgard soon he'd be back to it next week strapped down to a spine board. If he needed any further motivation that would do it; he had a strong aversion to being strapped down to anything. He hadn't realized all that he was agreeing to when Jane had volunteered him to play one of the victims.

Loki hurried the few steps to the galley to pick up something to eat and drink. He'd worked through the night again and skipped breakfast to avoid Jane. There was no need to see her today; they each had their own separate tasks to accomplish now. And he wasn't interested in any further discussion along the lines of yesterday evening. Any potential benefit in it to him was far outweighed by the risk. Even more so because he was very close to not needing her anymore. He needed her to fabricate the transmitter's circuit boards, and it was convenient that she would be able to do it, given that it was the one component he was less than confident he could create himself. But as soon as he was able to confirm that he could reach Svartalfheim or at least Asgard through Yggdrasil, she would be superfluous.

He would leave her behind and forget her. He didn't need friends. Especially not the kind that had gone so far in taming "the mighty Thor," and that had distracted him with thoughts and feelings he no longer wanted to have. He hadn't responded to her implied question. And he wouldn't.

Loki shook his head as he perused the leftovers refrigerator for something with Selby's name on it. Jane was distracting him even now. He pushed her aside in his mind and turned to his plan for the day. Find something to eat – unfortunately Selby hadn't seen fit to leave him anything this time, so he turned to the leftovers the galley stored for people eating at odd hours – take it to his room, further examine the lithium polymer battery, then begin searching for materials with at least some similar properties to duplicate it from. It would be delicate work, since it needed not to simply look like the battery, but to be literally identical to the battery in function. Failing that, he thought he might be able to interweave an imperfect duplicate with his magic and let magic actively serve the function of the battery, but even that would require a thorough understanding of both the transmitter and Pathfinder's tracking and recall functions. He also wasn't sure if any of this would count as a violation of Curse Two, but even if it would, it was necessary and thus far there'd been no disastrous effects on him. And he wasn't eager to give Odin the further win of another examination of his motives. He had to do it, so it didn't matter if Odin saw it as right or wrong.

/

* * *

/

Thor wiped a hand across his forehead, smearing the splatters of mud there instead of actually getting rid of them. It had rained heavily the day before, and the field currently being used for a training exercise was slippery with loosened and worn away grass and soaked earth. The group of warriors before him, some three hundred men, stood in small clusters drinking water from skins, which younger men, many still youths, and a few young women darted around refilling. They had just practiced an offensive charge over Asgard's wall, and it still lacked the coordination that Tyr said would be necessary for the charge to be maximally effective. Dozens of horses had been given flight, but the warriors astride them had arrived too late to attack from above while the men on foot were at their most vulnerable.

They would have to run the drill again, from the start, but change some of the circumstances, because there was no way to know who might attack, in what formation, in what location, with what weapons, and the warriors needed to be prepared for any eventuality. They were running out of time to get it right. Three days remained within the two-week deadline Gullveig had pompously proclaimed. And if Asgard were attacked on the fourth, the realm's warriors needed to be ready, not tired and recovering from training injuries. This was the last day of full-scale training. Beginning tomorrow, exercises would rotate among smaller groups of warriors, while the rest ran through only light, simple drills to keep themselves primed and alert, ready to deploy wherever they were needed.

Volstagg, who was leading this group, proposed the new scenario and Thor nodded approval; Volstagg rode off to confer with the Einherjar sentry posted closest to the site of the new assault. The sentry's first alert went unheard, announced by a single note on the small enchanted ram's horn he and all of his fellows wore slung around their necks. This was a local alert, to heighten the vigilance of anyone nearby: _I have seen something which may signify attack._

The second alert, two notes in short succession on the ram's horn, activated the magic wrought over the horn. Its clear voice was easily tracked to its source, and could be heard all over Asgard: _We are under attack at my location._

A third option, three notes, had been planned for and explained, but never practiced. It was to be used only if drastic measures were required: _Every Asgardian who is able, male or female, young or old, come immediately to this location._ Announcements could be made through the horns as well – all of the commanders and many of the warriors they commanded wore rams' horns as well. This was discouraged, though, unless absolutely necessary – such as to provide information on the nature of an attack or the type of defender needed – in order to keep communications simple.

A fourth type of alert could precede or follow any of the others. It had not been practiced, but had been heard on numerous occasions within Asgard, even in Thor's lifetime, when in the past it had been used to mark the start of Thor's coronation ceremony and the beginning and ending of celebrations for the victory over Jotunheim, among other things. Kept within Heimdall's reach, it was no ordinary ram's horn. It was taken from a ram born of magic, grown large and strong. It was the length of Heimdall's arms, with two full twists in it, and had been coated in gold and etched with runic inscriptions. It could in theory be used to proclaim any significant event, but all knew that the long, low note from the Gjallarhorn now had one meaning only: _We are at war_.

Two notes sounded, followed by Volstagg's voice announcing the beginning of Exercise Three, so that no one mistook the alarm for an actual attack. The warriors around him, on foot, on horseback, on winged horseback, raced off in the direction of the alarm. Thor did not follow. He was to be part of a different exercise shortly, responding to the appearance of portals created by magic-wielders to mimic the portals that Svartalfheim could even now be forming to open on Asgard. A portal opened by magic may require magic to fully close it, but Thor had had some success against the open portal on Midgard by directing lightning against those trying to come through it.

He heard the rumble of a horse's hooves behind him and turned to see Hogun approaching at a rapid gallop. "How goes your task, Hogun?" Thor asked once his friend reached him and dismounted. The two clasped arms for a moment in greeting.

"Well. The Weapons Vault will remain protected."

Thor nodded his appreciation. Hogun was part of a small team designing and implementing safeguards to further enhance the already formidable defenses surrounding Asgard's most powerful treasures. It was strange working at parallels with his friends instead of side by side, and it was good to stand here with Hogun, boots sinking into mud, if only for a brief time, as it had been with Volstagg. "Volstagg is running this exercise again. Our warriors aren't used to this kind of coordinated battle."

Hogun gave a short grim nod. "Heimdall sent me to deliver a message to you. Your friend on Midgard says he has no answers, only an update. He said you would understand."

Thor considered that. He was needed here; his role in the upcoming mock battle against opened portals was critical. He didn't think he could abandon it for no more than an update, but if Tony had thought this update worth contacting him for, then he should find out what he had learned. Any visit to Tony, however, was unlikely to be brief. Tony liked to engage in irrelevant conversation even at the most inappropriate times. And then he had an idea. If anyone could go to Midgard, meet with Tony, and return again with the minimal amount of time wasted, it was the man standing silently before him.

"Can you leave your work for a short while longer, Hogun?"

"I can."

"Then I have a task for you." Thor took a long look around them and found there were no stragglers; they were alone. "I must tell you something first, something known only to myself, my mother and father, and one fellow warrior on Midgard. I must ask you to keep it secret."

Hogun merely raised an eyebrow slightly.

Thor nodded. As little as Hogun spoke, he would be unlikely to repeat anything Thor told him even if it weren't a secret at all.

/

* * *

/

A ram's horn sounded twice, followed by the announcement of an exercise. Something shimmered in the air above the edge of a forested area to the west. As Frigga watched from a balcony on the top floor of the palace, a streak of red flew past. An instant later the sky flashed with lightning which raced down to the speck of red. Her son directed the lightening as more false portals opened, some in the sky, some on the ground, and soon other warriors arrived, quickly settling into zones of attack.

Frigga turned away. She'd watched these training battles off and on all day, deep in thought. She'd spent much of the time treading and retreading the past, and even now found herself wandering back into the sitting room just outside her bedchambers to stare at the area where a tall display case of jewelry now stood, but where once a crib had been. Her first child had been born during war, and had slept in that crib for the first few months inside her bedchambers, before Odin returned home for a short time and she moved the crib into this room to make sure her husband was able to sleep at night. Her second child had been placed in that crib next to her first, on the first night of real peace in years. Her third child…her third child was gone. But he had slept there, too.

War, if Odin could not find a way to avert it, was about to begin anew. Thor was now himself preparing for war. It was inevitable, she knew. A son born to Asgard was by definition a warrior, practically speaking, even if he took up some other trade or profession. He trained for battle and stood ready and eager to enter the fray whenever needed. And her sons were not just any sons – they were Odinsons. She knew war awaited them; peace never lasted forever.

Loki had escaped this war, was probably entirely ignorant of it, and yet at the very heart of it. If the leaders of the other realms were to be believed, he was in fact the cause of it. Meant to bring peace, he had instead brought war to every single one of the Nine.

Her gaze fell on the old cushioned rocking chair she'd rocked each of her sons in. It had been repaired numerous times, and bits of it had had to be replaced, the cushions more times than she could count, but its construction was solid and she refused to get rid of it. Loki had held Baldur for the first time in that chair, and Frigga remembered like it was yesterday how he'd held him so carefully, how he'd looked at the baby with awe and adoration. He'd meant to protect him, and instead…

Frigga was never certain what Loki really meant to do. He'd said he never meant to hurt Baldur. He'd said it again and again, his face contorted in agonizing pain. But he'd also looked her right in the eye and told her he would make the Jotuns pay for their attempt on Odin's life. The attempt he'd facilitated. Loki lied. He'd done so all his life, though not always with such ill intent. Lies were an integral part of his life from his very first days. She wondered if he was born with that predilection, part of him through Jotun blood, or if he'd simply absorbed it through the lies she and Odin perpetuated. She wondered, as she did from time to time, if it was her fault.

Oh, Thor had lied, too. _"No, Mother, I didn't eat any of the pie,"_ he'd say over a blueberry pie with a missing slice marked by one jaggedly-cut side and blueberry juice on his chin. Loki was different. Loki would slice the metaphorical pie carefully, not like a child using a fork instead of knife, and there would be no sign of blueberry or cream or crumb anywhere on him. Metaphorical in his case because if he'd ever done anything like that on his own, she would never have known about it. Loki would lie, and she would believe him.

Frigga didn't love Loki any less for his imperfections. Thor was imperfect, too. He could be brash and arrogant, and as he'd grown older, his temper had developed into something fearsome that perfectly matched his ability to call thunder through Mjolnir. She loved Thor no less for it. She loved them both as they were, even though Loki's drastic, rapid descent had shattered her heart.

She feared for them both. Thor, at the front lines of a war against seven realms, and Loki, somewhere on Midgard being sought by seven realms. There was nothing she could do to protect Thor. There _might_ be something she could do to protect Loki.

/

* * *

/

The exercise over and discussion of it concluded, Thor separated himself from the others to inform Tyr, who was tracking all of the exercises and looking for ways to improve their strategies and performance. Before he could reach the palace, however, he spotted Hogun again riding toward him.

"What news do you bring, my friend?" Thor called as soon as Hogun was in hearing range.

Hogun of course new better than to replicate Thor's eagerness and dismounted at his side before answering quietly. "Your friend continues to search, but he has not found Loki. He found one image of him, in a town called Warman, in the Saskatchewan area of Canada."

"Loki remains in Canada then? In this Saskatchewan?"

"He does not know. But the image is old, from the day after Loki was sent to Midgard. Tony said that most video cameras save their images for a few weeks at most, and since he hasn't found any other images, Loki may have left Saskatchewan. If he remains there, he has been adept at hiding himself from cameras and made one mistake. The image Tony located comes from a police camera; they keep their images longer."

"Police?" Thor asked, instantly worried. "The planet's guard force? Did you see the image? Was Loki in trouble? Was he violating some law?"

"I saw it," Hogun said with a nod. "There's no doubt it was Loki. But he was not in trouble. He was entering a building across the street from the police station. A sweet shop of some sort called Tim Horton's."

"Loki always did have a sweet tooth," Thor said absently, mulling over this information. It may have been nearly two months old, but it was the first evidence he'd had even of his brother's existence on Midgard since his father had deposited him there. He felt a strong desire to see Loki, to ensure he was all right. He wished he'd seen that image himself. "Did he look well?" he suddenly asked.

"The image was not of sufficient quality to judge."

Thor nodded. It was a ridiculous question anyway. How different could Loki have looked from when Thor had stood right next to him one day earlier? "And Stark had no further information?"

Hogun's expression changed little, but Thor had known him almost all his life and recognized the significance of even the tiniest movement of a muscle in Hogun's face.

"What? Tell me everything you learned."

"Your friend likes to talk."

"He enjoys the sound of his own voice," Thor agreed, cringing a bit on the inside for what Hogun must have had to endure. "But please, tell me what he said."

"He asked many strange questions about Asgard and about you and about my attire. And he insisted that Krispy Kreme is better than Tim Horton's, no matter what any Canadian tells you."

Thor thought that over…for half a second. "I doubt that has any relevance."

Hogun inclined his head slightly. "You asked."

"I apologize."

/

* * *

/

"We had another volunteer this morning. A Light Elf merchant who's lived here nearly a century. He has a similar story to many of the Vanir volunteers. He wants to defend Asgard, but he doesn't want to raise arms against Alfheim. When I asked about his contacts on Alfheim, it turns out he's done business with many powerful people there, including a cousin of the king. He also lived for a time on Svartalfheim. He agreed immediately to my suggestion to travel to Alfheim and plant the idea that Svartalfheim is using the other realms. I…emphasized that we believe it to be true," Bragi said, averting his gaze. "He left this afternoon. That gives us nineteen. Ten on Alfheim, nine on Vanaheim."

"King Nadrith arrives tomorrow afternoon. I will see if our secret envoys have had any effect. This latest volunteer may be too late, but his connections may indeed make him more valuable. You did well to make use of him, Bragi, especially when I know it isn't your preference," Odin said. Bragi, like Thor, found this use of deceit distasteful. But Bragi and many of the other advisors, unlike Thor, had seen the Ice War, and even the Vanir-Aesir War, and understood the gravity of what they faced.

"Were you able to meet with Gullveig?" Thor asked.

"No. He would not see me, unless it was to accede to his demands. I will try again after I see Nadrith." Odin had now spoken with all of the other leaders, but had decided to concentrate their final efforts to stop the war before it began on Alfheim and Vanaheim.

Geirmund, the supplies advisor – newly named to separate supply management from the trade advisor's normal duties – reported that those not involved in or directly supporting the training exercises were out hunting, salting and curing, harvesting early everything possible, and preparing for long-term storage of excess food. Asgard, with its relatively small land mass, received much of its food supply through trade with Vanaheim. "We may wish to consider seeking trade with Midgard, Your Majesty," the young advisor, a few years younger than Thor, said nervously.

"It is an option to keep in mind," Odin agreed. "Prepare lists of what we may request and what we may offer. Keep in mind that their realm is fractured and barely governed. Most of their people remain unaware of our existence. Work with whomever you must to also prepare plans for how we might initiate a trade request."

Geirmund nodded his assent, and Thor caught the glance that came his way. He took a sharp breath. Now would he have to deal with food supply as well? He still had doubts about Odin's methods, but if that had lessened his respect for his father at all it was easily forgotten as he watched him navigate through advisor after advisor, listening to their reports, asking questions, offering suggestions, making decisions.

"The palace, Jolgeir?" Odin asked.

"We completed the upgrades today, All-Father. Escape routes are in place, extra guards have been posted at key entry points, and layers of shielding have been placed around the entire structure, densest at the throne room, your chambers, and Prince Thor's chambers. No one will be able to enter those areas without your explicit authorization."

"This is Maeva Mordidottir's doing?" Odin asked. Maeva was the late Mordi's eldest daughter, and was now considered the most powerful master of magic in Asgard.

"It is, Your Majesty. Maeva tested her own magic against it and was unable to enter the throne room without undoing what she did, and she is confident no one else would be able to replicate that precisely enough to undo it."

"Very well," Odin said, moving on to Hogun, who reported on the enhanced security of the Weapons Vault.

First Einherjar Hergils reported that all known portals to other realms were now under constant guard, and would be sealed at nightfall on the last day before Gullveig's deadline ran out.

"Heimdall wished me to remind that Loki knew of hidden passageways between the realms," Hogun put in.

Hergils nodded. "We have been seeking them ever since Heimdall first informed me. But we have found none. And we still don't know if this was only a single passageway to Jotunheim, or multiple routes to other realms as well, or if only Loki was able to use them."

"Thor, you can think of nothing else Loki ever said on the matter?" Odin asked.

"No," he said with a shake of his head. "Nothing other than what we've already discussed." They'd also discovered a few of the otherwise forgotten portals to Vanaheim in their younger years, but those he had already noted back when they were compiling the list of all the portals between the two realms. Loki had never mentioned finding any other portals, much less using them to travel without telling anyone. _Loki stopped sharing his secrets with me long ago,_ Thor realized. _When did that happen? We used to tell each other everything…_

"Could there be passageways to and from Midgard?" Sif suddenly asked. She almost sounded like she was asking herself as much as anyone else, and Thor knew it had just occurred to her. He hadn't thought of it either.

"Let us hope not," Odin said. He was the only one who didn't look surprised by Sif's question. "Is there anything further from Heimdall?"

"The other realms are training, but he has seen no signs of impending attack," Hogun answered.

Odin turned to the agricultural advisor, and Frigga, sitting at the opposite end of the table, let her thoughts wander. She did not like these meetings, but knew she needed to stay informed, since in a moment of crisis she might be called upon to speak for Asgard. She had done so regularly during the Ice War when he was away, ruling as a monarch in her own right, and once Thor came she'd often sat on Odin's throne with a crying baby in her arms, lest he be raised more by his nursemaids than by his own mother. She'd been grateful for Odin's safe return, grateful to entrust the ruling of the realm to him again, grateful to no longer have to choose between her child and her kingdom.

_How we have come full circle_, she thought with uncharacteristic bitterness that she tried to swallow away.

Odin thought he knew the enchantment on the gem she had given Loki; he thought it was the same simple necklace he'd given her the day after bringing Loki home. Simple magic, with a simple message: _I love you_. Odin had never really been good at expressing his feelings, but this necklace, which glowed against her skin every time he thought of her with love, told her everything she needed to know about what he felt for her and for their children. In her mind, it bound their new family together as they learned how to simply _be _a family, for before the Ice War it had only been her and Odin, and after it, they were a family of four.

Odin thought he knew the enchantment on the gem, and had told Thor that it could not be used to find Loki. He was wrong. Magic was no more than manipulation of energy, of the energy that formed and surrounded all things. Such manipulation of energy could be tracked. If it was strong enough. If one knew what to look for. It was. And Frigga knew.

Her eyes fell on Thor, listening attentively to everything going on around him, a severe expression on his face. Suddenly she missed hearing his laughter. She hadn't heard it in such a long time. Perhaps not since the day of his intended coronation.

She couldn't tell Odin what she'd done; was deception in her blood, too? He would be angry, because she'd gone behind his back. And if things on Asgard got too bad, if it looked as though all would be lost…Odin would be forced to do what he must, to sacrifice Loki. The realm eternal would survive. Their family would not.

She wondered, though, as she had ever since he asked about it, if she could tell Thor. She wanted to. Badly. What if some danger approached Loki, and he were completely unaware of it, and left with no time to react, no time to employ the modified necklace she gave him? Wouldn't it be good to know where Loki was, so Thor could go protect him, rescue him even, if needed? But she didn't think she could bring herself to put Thor in that position either. Because Thor was destined to be a king, one day not too distant, and Thor would have to be a king first, too, before being a husband and father himself, when that day came. Before being a son. Before being a brother.

When the meeting finally ended, Frigga approached Thor, standing with Sif and the Warriors Three.

"I've heard the taverns are all closed," Fandrall was saying.

"Nonsense. Tens of thousands of warriors were out doing battle today. There isn't a tavern in the realm that won't be open tonight filling their plates and their tankards," Vollstag said.

"Weren't you listening?" Sif asked. "Someone has to be there to actually work in the tavern. Everyone's busy with preparations right now."

Frigga stepped in before Vollstag could respond. "Thor, I would speak with you."

"Of course, Mother," Thor said, stepping away as the others bowed their heads in respect.

She led him away, all the way to the back wall; everyone else either remained clustered near the long table or had already departed through one of the doors on the opposite wall.

"What is it?" Thor prompted when his mother said nothing. He glanced over at his friends. He was anxious to join them again and head out to a tavern to unwind for a little while; if none were open, he knew a couple of tavern owners who would surely be willing to unlock their doors for him and his friends.

"You must keep this in confidence. Can you?"

Thor watched her questioningly. Finally he nodded.

"If it becomes necessary, absolutely necessary…if Loki is in danger and you need to go to him…I may know a way to help your friend quickly find him."

"What?" he asked in surprise. "Mother, if you know-"

"That's all I will say on it, Thor. You will come to me to hear the rest only if you must. And until then we will not speak of it again. Understood?"

"Yes, Mother," Thor answered.

She took his hand, squeezed it, then released it and walked away. Thor watched her as she left the room, wondering what she knew that he did not.

/

* * *

/

Loki saw Jane for the first time all day at dinner that night in the galley. She was sitting with yet another person he'd never seen her with before – did she now plan to make everyone here her best friend? _Perhaps she offers to contact _everyone's_ mother for them,_ he thought with a sneer. Belittling Jane's offer made him feel slightly better about that whole conversation. Less like she'd somehow gotten to him.

He put together a plate of food – this time some kind of fish called "sole," which he hoped didn't taste like its name – and tried to sit elsewhere, but Jane called him over. Reluctantly he joined the two women.

"Lucas, do you know Mari?"

"I'm sorry, I haven't had the pleasure," he said. He recognized her, actually, but had never gotten her name. She worked in the kitchen, which he thought must be one of the least pleasant jobs here. This woman had to wash dishes six days per week.

"Mari Koppel, Lucas Cane," Jane said. "Mari's one of our cooks. She's from New York. Lucas is working with me on a research project out here. He's in grad school at the University of Toronto."

Loki ran though basic pleasantries with minimal attention; he'd been actively trained in such things and it came rather naturally to him anyway. If this was the route Jane insisted on going, he could follow her on it, as long as the destination remained the same. Meanwhile, he found himself surreptitiously studying this Mari Koppel from New York. Short wavy blond hair, blue eyes, expressive face, a little taller than Jane and a little heavier. For all he knew, he could have seen her there. She could have seen him. If she had, she obviously didn't recognize him. And he probably hadn't seen her, either.

In the beginning, he'd found it fascinating, what happened far beneath him. Little figures running here and there, cars abandoned and bringing traffic to a standstill, sirens flashing…everything was so different from Asgard. It was like a game. A game which he controlled, whose rules he wrote and rewrote. He'd never seen any of the faces of the miniature players down below. The only players who earned his attention were those who stood in his way.

"Will you join us, Lucas?" Mari was asking.

He breathed in slowly, then took a bite of fish, allowing himself a moment to recall what he was being asked to join. He'd wound up with plans to be restrained to a spine board the last time he agreed to something without paying attention. _A movie_. She'd asked him to watch a movie tonight. He knew what they were, more or less, but hadn't really seen one, only video security feeds and short informational videos.

"Ah, I don't-"

"Have you seen it?" Mari asked.

"He's a hockey fan, he's seen it. Oh, wait, he's a _Canadian_ hockey fan, maybe not," Jane teased.

"Why wouldn't I have seen it because I'm a _Canadian_ hockey fan?" Lucas asked, imitating the way she'd pronounced his supposed home country.

"You haven't even heard of it? It's about the US versus the Soviet Union in the 1980 Olympics," she answered.

She may as well have been speaking in code. "The US" he was relatively certain was the United States, but he'd never heard of the Soviet Union or the Olympics. He tried to politely refuse, but Jane enticed him by saying they would catch each other up on the day's progress afterward. He suspected she did it on purpose, and resented being manipulated by _her_ instead of the other way around.

Before dinner was over he'd figured out everything he hadn't understood before; Mari's grandparents had been born in Estonia, then part of the Soviet Union, a country which no longer existed. Much of this union's territory remained in a country called Russia, and _that_ one he'd heard of. Apparently these two countries used to be at war with each other, a "cold war," but that term was never explained; his only similar term of reference was the Ice War. He gathered that the hockey game was a metaphor for the war, but found the entire concept rather bizarre. Asgard and Jotunheim had certainly never engaged in sporting matches while they'd been at war, not that he'd ever heard of anyway, and neither had they done so since. It would likely result in a bloodbath.

Mari informed him that he would have to wear something sports-themed to the movie. Before he could try to get out of that one he remembered the horse hat Mohsin had given him – he'd already worn it once, it wouldn't do any further harm to his pride to wear it again, and it would nip in the bud a guaranteed conversation in which Jane and Mari tried to get him to wear something borrowed from someone else.

They split up after dinner to change for the movie; all Loki needed to do was pull the white Melfort Mustangs hat with its hockey stick-holding horse dressed in white, green, and blue on over his head to be ready, so he took a few minutes to survey the materials he'd collected on his latest round of Hidden Treasure. Jane had been right; this type of battery was not yet commercially available. He'd researched it in the early afternoon on the internet. But he'd gathered plastics and various other types of lithium batteries, and he was eager to begin trying to reform them to his needs. He let his eyes drift closed for a moment. He was so tired. He could barely concentrate. Tonight he would have to sleep. Tomorrow he would be refreshed, ready to create exactly what was needed to get him off this planet.

Loki waited a few more minutes, staring absently at his finds, then grabbed his hat from the back of the shelf in his wardrobe and put it on. He headed downstairs and through the wide main corridor to the B3 lounge at the other end of the station, the first room he'd seen here, where he, Jane, Rodrigo, and the disappearing Gillian had been given a lecture and shown a short video as introduction to the South Pole. He hadn't been back here since.

Some fifteen people had already gathered, including Jane in her faded orange Caltech T-shirt and Mari in a gray sweatshirt and sweatpants with a "New York Knicks" insignia. Wright was there, too, but none of the other scientists that Loki knew were present. All the seating was full, so Loki was forced to join a few others on the floor. The floor he didn't mind so much; he _did_ mind the occasional leg or foot that bumped into him.

As the movie got underway, Loki found himself enjoying it much more than he expected. It helped that he had seen this game played and understood its basics, and he was intrigued that it was based on actual events in Midgard's history. There was really nothing like this on Asgard, where such play-acting was considered the domain of children and youths; he'd enjoyed it then, but thought little of it since. It was rather impressive when done professionally by adults. He quickly went from interested to engrossed, even relating to certain moments, such as when the trainer pushed the young hockey players so hard that some of them vomited. Tyr had made him vomit more than once.

He was narrowing his eyes at some cultural reference he'd failed to grasp when he felt the weight of a stare. He looked to his left and saw it was Jane. She gave a quick smile then turned back to the large television screen.

At the end of the movie, as the American team got their "miracle" per the movie's title, Loki couldn't help a rush of pleasure for the enthusiastic young men, having accomplished what no one thought they could, against seemingly impossible odds. He shook his head and pushed aside the emotion, manufactured as it was by the movie and its swelling music. He could hear someone behind him actually crying. Regardless of any attached sentiment, the movie intended to teach a lesson, he thought: _Work hard and you can achieve your goals._ It was a lesson he could appreciate. Perhaps if he'd worked harder, he would have achieved his goal on Midgard and all these people would be kneeling to him right now instead of bumping into him as they stood from their seats. The thought made him laugh. Perhaps that overconfident SHIELD man he'd killed was right after all, perhaps he'd lacked conviction. That thought made the laughter die on his lips.

He felt that stare again and turned to see Jane standing to his left, watching him. He untangled his legs and stood, closing the distance between them with a few steps. "What?" he asked.

"It's nothing."

"When _I_ say that you pry incessantly until I answer."

Jane rolled her eyes. "Fine. But really, it's nothing. It's just…you look…different, somehow. With that hat on."

Loki tried to swallow but found his throat uncooperative. "Different?"

"Yeah, well…" She trailed off; Loki thought she looked uncomfortable. "I've never seen you with a baseball cap on. It's just…strange. That's all."

Loki grabbed the part that stuck out in front and jerked the thing off his head with his left hand, automatically running his right hand through his hair to smooth it. "How's that?" he asked quickly, hoping his voice sounded normal.

Jane grinned. "I didn't say it looked _bad_. Just strange. Come on, let's go talk shop for a few minutes."

Loki followed her out, all his concentration on slowing his heart rate back to normal.

* * *

/

_Thank you sooooo much for the reviews, I have no idea why this chapter tumbled out in two days but the one after it that I just finished writing was like pulling teeth at times to get the words on paper (which has happened before, but I really didn't expect it this time). Especially the last few reviews that came in, just because of the timing, they were such an encouragement - and I'm so sad I can't respond to any of them! Please know that I'm thankful for every single review, whether I can directly tell you or not. Guest (2/3, on Ch.6, when you get here!), I'm so psyched someone finally mentioned knowing Melfort on here! And good timing as it makes a recurring mention in this chapter. Rogue, and everyone, I'm very committed to finishing this. I write every single day without fail, my rule is I cannot go to bed without writing in it even if it's only a sentence. And the thing is if you can get a sentence out, you can generally get much more out. And everyone, again, thank you, for reviewing, for reading, for joining me on this ride._

_I hope you didn't groan *too* much at Krispy Kreme vs. Tim Horton's. For those who've lived or spent enough time in both countries, or maybe just live in border areas, it is in fact a common debate...and I figured Tony wouldn't have been able to stop himself from asserting his preference. I'm not so much of a doughnut gal, but if I had one I'd go for a fresh hot one from Krispy Kreme. If I had to choose a favorite item overall though, I'd go for Tim Horton's apple scone...mmmmmmm. BTW...you can Google-map that Tim Horton's in Warman. Police station across the street. What did we do before the internet?  
_

_Previews for "Ch. 32: Countdown" - Loki has another nightmare that's not entirely from his own mind; we meet Alfheim's king and, um, his argument almost convinces *me*; Thor gets a little testy with Alfheim's king; Jane continues getting more involved in station social life but Loki's not entirely willing to go along with it; and, of course, progress is made toward Loki's goal.  
_

_And excerpt (Odin, first, speaking with Alfheim's King Nadrith):  
_

"[...]There is no more risk."

_"_You didn't foresee Loki being a risk, though, did you? What is it that you do not foresee now? Why is the tesseract of such great importance to you, anyway? You were without this relic for a millennium. Why must you cling to it now? Is it solely your pride? And the Jotuns, do they not deserve to have their own Casket returned to them? Have not a thousand years of deprivation and now near extermination earned them the right? Does your son not deserve to be punished by those whom he has wronged instead of by the father whose heart is soft with love for him?"_  
_


	33. (32) Countdown

**Beneath**

Chapter Thirty-Two – Countdown

Like everyone else, Loki had cardboard up in his window now, to prevent light from leaking out into the ever-approaching darkness. He could still see it though – his mind wouldn't let him forget – the exterior lights bathing the gray buildings in an eerie red glow and making them seem unnatural, even malevolent. No realm intended its landscape to look like that.

Loki climbed into bed in the darkness of his tiny chambers, his vision still sufficient to set his wristwatch alarm for 5:30, enabling him to be up before Jane and see her first thing in the morning. He was unsettled by the way she'd looked at him during the movie. He needed to make sure she hadn't developed any sudden suspicions. He didn't think she had – he'd already learned she was a terrible liar and she hadn't seemed to be hiding anything when afterward she related her progress on the circuit boards for the transmitter they needed – but he wanted to see her again to be certain.

He slid down between the sheets and pulled the linens and blanket up to his shoulders trying not to see red lights over a dreary icy vista, then pulled the sound blanket, as he thought of it, down over the room. In the corner opposite the bed on the window side of the room, particles shimmered and danced but did not seal. Loki stared at the corner as though it were a living thing defying his will. He extended a hand, tugging with outstretched fingers, and the seal formed and held. He watched it for a moment to be sure.

Loki closed his eyes and sleep, so long denied, quickly claimed him.

_He whipped his head around but could barely see a thing. Only darkness and glowing red lights. His feet slammed into the ground. Not ground. Ice. He ran as though Death itself chased him, but he saw nothing. He didn't know why he was running, or what he was running from. He didn't want to know. He heard Thor's voice somewhere, in the distance. He couldn't tell from which direction. He ran._

_He heard a scream. Thor! No, Fandral. It was Fandral, revealed by receding shadows. He'd been impaled on spikes of ice. Loki ran harder. Fandral couldn't free himself. A monster approached him. Loki ran faster. The monster grew a spear of ice straight out of its palm. Loki's boots hit the ice beneath him with such force it began to crack. The monster looked straight at Loki with its gleaming red eyes and stabbed Fandral through the heart; a different shade of red poured over the ice. The monster had black hair. A distorted but familiar face. He stared straight at Loki and smiled through blood splatters._

_Ice cracked and groaned. An angry shout bellowed out through the darkness. Loki fell. And fell, and fell. He couldn't see the ice above him anymore. His breath was sucked out of him as he hit water. Water thick and slushy, closer to solid than liquid. Water that clung to him, froze to him, mired him as though in mud, making his desperate attempts to free himself of it clumsy and sluggish._

_His hand, thrust above the water, brushed something solid. He tried to grab at it, but his hand was stiff and useless. He forced his frozen eyelids to open. He saw a hand, not his own, stronger than his own. An angry, tightened jaw. Flashing blue eyes. Loki tried again to reach the hand, but it evaded his. It reached for his head instead. The palm opened wide. Fingertips pressed into his forehead and scalp, hard enough to bruise, perhaps hard enough to crush his skull. He tried to clutch the arm, but his club-like hands could only strike at it weakly. The slush covered his mouth. It covered his nose. It covered his eyes. He thrashed about but he couldn't get free of the fingers digging into his head, holding him down. He couldn't breathe couldn't breathe couldn't breathe…_

_He burst out of the water, gasping for air and blinking against the sunlight._

"_This is the only way to get over your fear, Loki," Thor said from a child's body, floating in the water not far away. Thor started pushing through the water toward him._

_Loki's eyes went wide. He rolled to his stomach to swim toward the shore, but found he couldn't swim. There was no strength in his short limbs. He didn't even know how. He felt a hand on his ankle. He saw Father standing at the water's edge. "Help me!" he cried out._

"_It's the only way, Loki," Father intoned, watching without movement._

_Thor pulled him around to face him. "You're a coward, Loki. Only a coward would burst into tears from getting wet." Thor grew from child to youth to man before his eyes. He planted his hands on Loki's shoulders and pushed him down._

_Loki's eyes bulged. Thor's face was distorted through the water, his head crowned by the sun._

_Loki's struggles faded and Thor hauled him up. "You're weak. You're nothing. You don't deserve Father's name. You don't deserve anyone's name. You _have_ no name." Thor pushed him under again._

_Strength surged through him and he burst up out of the water and slammed his fist into Thor's chin. The suns burned and Loki felt faint underneath them. They were not on Asgard. They were not children. Thor recovered easily and Loki couldn't move quickly enough in the water to avoid the blow that struck his jaw. He heard something crack and squeezed his eyes shut against the pain that radiated through his head. The sounds of laughter came from the old pier. When he looked up at it, he saw Volstagg and Hogun and Fandral and Sif. All of them pointing and laughing. The pier shimmered beneath them with the colors of the rainbow. His hand cupped his jaw. They laughed harder._

_Thor seized him by his hair, jerking his head so far back he feared his neck would snap. Loki tried to kick under the water, but his legs met nothing solid. "You were never good enough. Not even good enough to walk in my shadow. You're an embarrassment to me. To Father. Even to Mother, she's just too kind-hearted to tell you so. You don't deserve to breathe the same air I breathe. Don't ever forget that."_

_Thor plunged him under again, and Loki no longer breathed his air. His lungs would not expand at all and darkness closed in, cold and unrelenting. He was alone here. Alone in the entire universe. Panic swelled in him. He tried to call out, for someone to look for him, for someone to find him, but his mouth would not even open._

_And then someone did. A hand on his shoulder. A hand on his head. Hot fetid breath that was denied to his own lungs. _

"_Have you forgotten? We will not let you forget. _They_ will not let you forget." Fingernails like claws sank into his scalp._

Loki woke to his own shout; the sound of it announced the return of air to his lungs and he sucked it in greedily. He sat up and drew his knees up to his chest, letting his head rest against them and pressing his hands over the top of his head. It was dry. He was dry. There was no water. No abyss. No _him_. Just a dream. Another dream of stolen memories. Another message.

He stayed still for several minutes until his hands stopped trembling and his breaths stopped coming in shuddering gasps. He couldn't deny what this was. He knew his own dreams. They weren't like this. They could be violent and terrible, full of fear, full of all sorts of shunned feelings, but not like this. He had been led through this distorted dreamscape. The route was different, the destination unchanged.

He ran his fingers through his hair. It was starting to grow out some. If his mother were here she would tell him he should cut it. He laughed into his legs. _Mother…what was it Thor said about her? She was too kind to tell me something? That I'm weak? That I'm an embarrassment?_

He forced himself to pull up what he remembered of the nightmare even as it began to slip away from him, and found it physically painful. He did it anyway. He wasn't afraid of pain.

_Jotunheim_. Not long ago at all. Frost Giants everywhere. Fandral, dead. Thor blamed him. Thor blamed him for everything that happened there. He had no right. Thor made his own decisions. Loki had never wanted to actually go there. Thor making a grand show of his desires should have been enough to prove to Father what a fool he was. Thor and his _stupid_ ego…

_Asgard._ Over a millennium ago. Thor had nearly drowned him and his father hadn't done a thing about it. He'd been afraid of the water as a child. Thor had decided to cure him of it. Had it always been that way? Had Thor always… Loki's head began to pound. It was a terrible thought. Unthinkable except he had thought it. And not for the first time. They had all lied to him.

_Alfheim_. Somewhere in the middle. They'd been arguing over something or other. It had gotten worse and worse and Thor's friends had laughed as his jaw was breaking. Thor said he was an embarrassment, said it in front of everyone.

It wasn't true. It wasn't _all_ true. He knew it wasn't. It couldn't be. He knew they took the memories, sifted them, fed them back to him but in changed form.

He tried to pick them apart, to separate out the lies. Fandral. He wasn't dead. Suddenly he remembered a knife flying from his hand, an extension of his own body. The Frost Giant who'd been closing in on Fandral had never made it there. No, every mistake made that day had been _Thor's_. Not his.

He turned next to the incident at the lake on Asgard, but he couldn't even picture it apart from the nightmare, no matter how hard he tried. He'd been so young. He'd been so terrified. Even now… Loki pressed his head back into his knees. It was too hard. An impossible task. His whole life was a lie, how was he supposed to pry apart the truth from the lies? The pounding in his head crescendoed, and he steadied himself to be able to concentrate and ease the pain.

He wasn't afraid. He'd felt fear the first time his dreams had been invaded, but nothing else had happened after that. Nothing would happen this time either. He wasn't afraid. He was angry.

Headache receding, Loki turned away from the nightmares and the memories and the truth and the lies. It was all irrelevant. It was all in the past, and it wasn't even really his past anymore. It was Loki Odinson's past, and Loki Odinson no longer existed.

/

* * *

/

Odin watched with curiosity, his face expressionless, as Alfheim's King Nadrith Ljosalf went to one knee and bowed before him, just two days remaining until the proclaimed deadline for Asgard's submission to the other realms' demands. The dark-haired man, only about eighty years older than Thor and Loki, thus putting them in the same generation, had ruled for some two hundred years now. New though he was to his throne, he had ruled wisely, and no one thought him a weak leader for his relative youth and inexperience. No one thought him physically weak, either. His people, the Light Elves or Ljosalf, whose name he had taken in place of his clan name upon his coronation per tradition, did not prize physical strength to the same extent as the Aesir, but Nadrith had spent portions of his young adulthood in weapons training on Asgard, and had come to pride himself on his strength. Muscles that rivaled Thor's rippled in his bare arms and calves, olive skin tanned to a deep bronze, as he stood again and positioned himself before Odin.

"You do me great honor, Nadrith. It is unexpected."

"I stand before a king seated on his throne. I can do no other." Nadrith's voice was as smooth as his words, like velvet.

Odin nodded his acknowledgement, then stood and descended the stairs of the dais to put himself at Nadrith's level; they were exactly the same height. "I apologize for not meeting you upon your arrival. We're very busy here."

"I understand, Your Majesty. There is no need to apologize. We're very busy on Alfheim as well."

Odin couldn't help but smile a bit at the response. The younger man comported himself very well. His father would be proud. "Since we're both busy men, let us not waste time with trivialities. Nadrith…you are young, but surely you know how costly this will be. Your advisors must recall the Great Fracture."

"I do. And they do," Nadrith said with a solemn nod. "The Great Fracture was a blight on Alfheim and Svartalfheim, but it was a necessary change, one that ensured the independence of both of our realms. Change always comes with a cost, Odin. We're ready to pay that cost. Are you? The price is small if you accept the necessity of the change. It will be much higher if you refuse to accept it." He took a step forward, rested a hand lightly on the edge of Odin's shoulder. "It's time to let go of some of your responsibilities, All-Father. You were prepared to do so not that long ago. I was here to witness the event myself."

"I was prepared to turn over my throne to my son. I was not prepared to entrust dangerous relics to other realms with uncertain motives. _That _has not changed," Odin said, choosing his words carefully.

Nadrith nodded slowly, thoughtfully. He let his arm fall back to his side. "We've heard murmurings about uncertain motives. We don't believe them. The Svartalf have not always dealt honorably with us, but we have rarely quarreled with the Vanir. Still, do not think us naïve. We do not simply take the tesseract and hope it is safe on Vanaheim. It will be housed there, but each of the realms that now stand in common cause will provide its most formidable magic-wielder to interweave enchantments of protection, along with a small cadre of warriors for added physical protection, so that no realm may access its power without the others' consent. If you accept this, Your Majesty, then in time, once Asgard has regained our trust, I'm confident we'll want Asgard to be a part of the tesseract's protection as well. But we will not have you as its sole protector, your word our only guarantor of it not being directed against one of us."

_So our secret emissaries are having little effect_. Odin felt his heart sink, even though he knew the effort, late and meager as it was, had little chance of success. "Nothing from our Weapons Vault has ever been inappropriately used, except for what my son did. He was able to do so only because he _is_ my son. He no longer has access to the Weapons Vault. That problem has been eliminated. The bifrost is no more, but as I said before, when it is rebuilt, when he returns here, he will not have access to it. There is no risk."

"You didn't foresee Loki being a risk, though, did you? What is it that you do not foresee now? Why is the tesseract of such great importance to you, anyway? You were without this relic for a millennium. Why must you cling to it now? Is it solely your pride? And the Jotuns, do they not deserve to have their own Casket returned to them? Have not a thousand years of deprivation and now near extermination earned them the right? Does your son not deserve to be punished by those whom he has wronged instead of by the father whose heart is soft with love for him?"

Odin scoffed at this. The boy was revealing his age now, sounding almost petulant. And yet how many would be convinced by his silken words, so full of what seemed eminently logical and reasonable? "You speak from ignorance, Nadrith. Asgard has protected relics such as these for millennia of millennia. Since long before you were born. Long before even I was born. Yggdrasil brings an inherent order to the Nine. You cite an aberration and seek an unbalancing of the cosmos. Such power is concentrated in the highest branches of the Tree for a reason. Look at the instability and eventually the danger to us all the tesseract brought to Midgard. Here it is safe. Contained. As for the Ice Casket, what have the Jotuns ever used it for but destruction? They don't need it to rebuild their realm, Nadrith, they need pick-axes and chisels and strong backs. They sit in ruins of their own choosing. And I will not speak to you of my son. Shall we speak of yours instead? Almost a year old, isn't he? How would _you_ respond to a demand to surrender him to another realm's punishment?"

Nadrith remained impassive, though Odin caught a certain softening around his eyes at the mention of his infant son. "I'll be honest with you. I don't know. But I like to think that if he had committed the same crimes as your son, I would be able to put my realm first and do what justice demanded."

"Jotunheim _has_ been wronged, and I have offered recompense. But they ask too high a price. When you go home tonight, go to your son's crib, pick him up, hold him, sing to him. Place your hand over his chest and feel his heart beat. Look into his eyes. Then ask me to cast my son out into the hands of his enemies." Even as he spoke the words, Odin remembered himself doing these things, when Loki was an infant. He loved his son. But his heart was not soft. He had no idea where Loki was, or what he was doing, although he knew he was being punished. Perhaps he should have given Loki some form of punishment that would be more obvious to the other realms, but he had hoped that finally he'd found a punishment Loki would actually learn from. And he had never anticipated what was happening now.

"Loki is not an infant. He's a criminal by your own laws. You'll have to face that eventually." Nadrith sighed. "I had hoped to find you more reasonable today, Your Majesty."

"I had hoped the same. It is you who do not see reason. You will destroy these peaceful realms with your war."

Nadrith bristled at those words, the first hint of anything disturbing his composure. He saw himself as a man of peace, Odin knew, and would not like to be thought an aggressor. He had subtly and then overtly pressed this point on his recent visit to Alfheim, but Nadrith had remained as resolute as he was now. "We are committed to our cause. It is a just cause. This is _your_ war, if you deny change."

There was little more to be said, and after a few further fruitless exchanges Nadrith took his leave and exited the throne room. He was escorted by an old man in servant's attire who was a veteran of the Ice War and still quite capable of performing a warrior's duties if needed, despite his portly appearance.

Thor waited for Nadrith along the short route to the portal to Alfheim designated for official travel. He'd been leaning against a tree off to the side of the cleared road, trying to look casual, but he knew he wasn't particularly successful. It didn't matter. Nadrith was no fool.

"Waiting long, Thor?" the young king asked without breaking stride.

Thor fell into step beside him. "Have you not yet decided to cease this rebellion?" he asked, his tone harsh but not angry. He'd known Nadrith nearly all his life and considered him a friend.

"Re_bell_ion," Nadrith repeated, almost a question. "Are you our overlords now, that we rebel against our masters?"

"Nadrith-"

"Save your breath, Thor. Unless your next words are that Asgard will give us what we ask, it's a wasted effort." He suddenly drew to a halt and reached out to clasp Thor's arm. The "servant" withdrew to a respectful distance. "You and I, we're part of the next generation. Things can't stay the same forever. You know that, don't you?"

"Some things do stay the same. Some things must. How many conflicts have Alfheim and Svartalfheim had? How many attempted coups has Vanaheim seen? How often does the throne change hands on Muspelheim? And let us not even _speak_ of Helheim, or Jotunheim, or Midgard. Asgard is _stable_. We-"

"Asgard hasn't been stable since the day Loki was born."

Thor's eyes narrowed and he wrenched away from the hand on his arm. "You dare speak of my brother that way? He counted you as a friend."

"Calm, my friend. I shouldn't have said that. We both know at whose feet these current problems lie, but the larger point is that no realm is stable forever. Asgard is no exception. But…it does us no good to discuss this. I want you to know I deeply regret what is to come," he said casting a look back at the palace with something close to fondness on his face.

Thor was not mollified in the slightest. To him the words sounded condescending. "Not enough to admit you've made a mistake. Not enough to put an end to this madness." He blinked and in the space of that blink he remembered the bite of a knife slipping between his ribs. The knife Loki had used after Thor had similarly failed to convince him to give up his plans of conquest.

"No," Nadrith agreed. "Not that much."

"I truly cannot fathom what you're doing. Your father never raised a fist in anger against Asgard."

"As I said, it's a new generation. It's time for change. Farewell, Thor," Nadrith said, extending an arm to grasp Thor's, more an Asgardian gesture than a Ljosalf one. "I fear the next time we meet, it will be in battle."

Thor ignored the hand. "If you come to this realm as its foe, I'll see you never leave it alive."

"Well, on that cheery note," Nadrith said with an overly wide smile, "until we meet again."

Nadrith continued on his way, the servant bowing and resuming his duties, following a few steps behind the king. Nadrith glanced back once, and Thor could swear he looked angry. He watched his back until he reached the portal and went through. He wondered what it was like to kill a king, if one felt any sort of special satisfaction. His thoughts wandered to Loki. Loki had killed a king… His mind rebelled against even trying to think that through, and he quickly went from smarting for a fight to wishing desperately to be able to turn back the clock to some time before any of this had happened, to sit down on a grassy hillside under the sun with Loki and laugh and talk, to perhaps figure out where everything had started to unravel, to do whatever it took to make sure it didn't happen again.

/

* * *

/

Saturday, March 27, was the day Loki had been waiting for. Not _the_ day he'd been waiting for, but at last a day that was filled with nothing but progress toward _the_ day.

He "coincidentally" left his room for the bathroom at the same time as Jane that morning by standing at his door and listening for the sound of hers, and she'd shown no unusual behavior when they spoke briefly, only the slight grumpiness she often displayed first thing in the morning. He'd vanished his baseball hat out of visible existence the night before, just in case. He still wondered why it was called a baseball hat when it was marked with the emblem of a hockey team, but he wasn't curious enough to type his question into the Google search box, and doubted there would come a time on Midgard now when he was bored enough for that to change.

In the galley Loki filled a mug with what he supposed would be called an octuple shot of espresso, although he'd never heard anyone use such a phrase or get that much of the strong coffee. He wasn't nearly as fond of it as Jane, but he hoped it would give his brain something of a kickstart without the "shaky hand syndrome" he'd gotten when he'd filled a large soda cup with the stuff. He would have to make another attempt at sleep tonight, but for now the partial night's sleep and the caffeine should be sufficient.

His work was again separate from Jane's, and he needed complete privacy for his part, so he shut himself up in his room, changed into the Asgardian attire he'd worn when he arrived on this planet – the deep violet tunic, black leather pants, even the black boots that rose to just below his knees. They were comfortable with their custom fit and patterns of wear made by him instead of who-knew-how-many other people before him.

If he had thought his Canadian passport a challenge to create, this far surpassed it. The passport was solely visual, albeit complexly visual. The lithium jelly battery did not have to look exactly like its model, but it had to function exactly like its model, withstand the elements like its model, generate plenty of power like its model, be as stable as its model. He had invested a considerable amount of time into studying the model, though, and he thought he could create its match.

Loki genuinely enjoyed the work. He ignored the reasons for what he was doing, he ignored everything he expected to come after and everything that had come before. Devoid of anger, devoid of anything other than an attempt to reshape matter and energy, to bend them to his will, his world shrank to his chair, his desk, the model battery, the raw materials to be transformed to duplicate it. Years, centuries even, fell away, and he was no different from the young man he had once been, eager to learn, to accomplish, solely for the sense of achievement. He felt something akin to happiness, but it had been so long since he'd felt an unpolluted happiness he didn't recognize it as such. He briefly wondered if this was what Jane felt when she was immersed in her scientific endeavors. He pushed the stray thought away, for it was no more than an unnecessary distraction. This was _his_ version of science, a co-mingling of science and magic that was beautiful in its purity and simplicity.

When he'd swirled the first bit of magic around the first bit of plastic, he'd clenched his jaw in anticipation of the possibility of pain, but Odin's curse never kicked in. Loki wasn't sure why not. Motivation couldn't be broken down to a science, he supposed. Deception was involved, selfishness to be sure…but he wasn't doing this for the purpose of deceiving, or harming. He was doing it so he and Jane could test a tracking device. So they could make sure they could get data from the probe they sent through Yggdrasil. So they could figure out where the probe wound up after going through that metaphorical tree. And _then_ so Loki could get out of here. Perhaps, then, this effort wasn't considered mischief. Whatever the reason, once it became clear he would not be punished for creating this battery, that concern was forgotten and his concentration became absolute.

By evening Loki was hungry and his eyes needed a break. He glanced at his watch, and realized that if he wanted to make it to the galley in time for the "fresh" dinner he needed to leave now. He had made good progress on the battery, and believed he would be ready to test it the next day. He was at a convenient stopping point, so he carefully stored all of his materials in one of the desk drawers, changed into Midgardian attire, threw his satchel around his neck, and headed out.

Jane was leaving the galley as he entered it. It was strange seeing her now, after not seeing her since early morning; the last two days he'd spent hardly any time with her at all, after being virtually tied to her side since they'd arrived. There was a certain pleasure in the familiarity of it, even though given where things stood now with her and with their work he preferred to steer clear of her. Loki did not have the need for constant social interaction that Thor…that some _others _did, but he was not by nature a hermit, either.

"How'd it go today?" she asked him where they paused just inside the large room, perhaps a dozen people seated at its tables.

"Quite well. I found a battery in one of the jamesways that has similar properties, so I've been trying to make a few modifications. I think it might work," he said, going with the lie he'd settled on earlier.

"Really? That's amazing. I guess somebody _has_ started manufacturing them commercially. Or maybe they got some prototypes of their own out here to test against extreme cold weather? Anyway, that's great news, Lucas."

"And you? Any progress?"

She nodded enthusiastically. "Gary's been incredible. Did you know he builds computers as a hobby?"

Loki shook his head, trying his best to look impressed by Gary's hobbies.

"I think he's happy for the distraction, too. They had to put his dad on a respirator, it doesn't look good. But he keeps saying he'd rather stay busy than sit around worrying, so he's really been helping a lot."

"How long do you think it will take?"

"I'm not sure. It's delicate work. Maybe a few days? I've got all day tomorrow to work on it, and I figure I'll put in a half-day on Sunday."

Loki resisted hard the urge to ask her to work all day Sunday and simply nodded. He started to continue on toward the serving line when Jane put a hand on his arm to stop him. He froze and swung back around to face her. She took her hand away and he relaxed.

"I just had an idea. Mari asked me to join her volleyball team. We're playing tomorrow night. I think I'm going to be kind of the pity player, but at your height if we get you on the net you could make up for me being on the team. You wanna join us?"

"I…don't really play," Loki said, thinking if he ever got time he really should look up Midgardian sports. He was never sure which ones he should know about and which ones were more eclectic.

"Me, either. The last time I played was in P.E. in high school. But I don't think anybody's anywhere near professional-level or anything, it's just a way to get some exercise and have some fun. And after a couple days hunched over a circuit board I think it'll be good to loosen up the muscles a bit. Come on, we'll figure it out together," she said with a shrug.

_Together? Like friends?_ That made it easier. "No, but thanks for the offer. Now if you'll excuse me…"

"Oh, sure, sorry, yeah, dinner hours are about up, go ahead."

Loki gave her a quick token smile and hurried on to the serving line, where the pans of food were just being put away.

/

* * *

/

Loki slept that night, and while he'd had a nonsensical and vaguely unpleasant dream in which he'd gone to Svartalfheim and been met by a woman he'd once loved there – unlikely to actually happen since she was long dead – it couldn't even be considered a nightmare, much less a nightmare of memories twisted in some kind of attempt to control him. "The Other," The Lesser, The Useless, The Appendage, The Putrid One, that had been his intent before. Loki supposed these dreams were the only way they could reach him now, through a lingering connection established with the scepter and weakened without it, intended to make him cower with fear. Those creatures had never understood him.

When they found him he'd been clinging to ephemeral strands of sanity in the void he now believed was Yggdrasil's trunk, stuck there from residual bifrost energy that had been sufficient to direct him into the wormhole but insufficient to maintain its activation and actually send him anywhere. They offered to free him if he answered their questions. He'd been so far gone then that he had no idea what words had come out of his mouth but he suspected it had been humiliating, involving begging and emotion and truth. All of which they then easily used against him.

He'd been desperate.

He hadn't needed any additional motivation to seize an opportunity to rule one of the Nine, to punish Thor that the one should be Midgard, to prove to Odin what a mistake he'd made in his rejection and disregard. He hadn't needed it, but they'd provided it anyway. Loki endured it, having quickly learned that escape was unlikely – he needed them as much as they needed him. What he needed from them, though, was short-term, limited to getting off that desolate black rock and back on his feet. What they needed was longer-term and disturbing.

Saturday went much the same as Friday, except that by late afternoon Loki was holding in his hand a new battery. He was already certain it worked, but he also knew Jane would need to see for herself. He got his gear on and went out to the Dark Sector's MAPO – the blue Martin A. Pomerantz Observatory with its exterior stairs and walkways like scaffolding on a building under construction – battery tucked away in his satchel. It had been nice not having to go outdoors the last couple of days but this was worth the discomfort.

Jane didn't hear him enter; her back was to him and she was seated on a stool, hunched over a table. Gary wasn't around. He closed the door softly behind him to take a moment to observe. He'd been in MAPO a handful of times, including recently as part of his treasure hunt, but he'd never been in the machinist's shop. Like so many other spaces here there was a certain amount of clutter, and the machinery lacked the sleek look of SHIELD's equipment, which he'd initially – erroneously – assumed to be the standard in this realm. When Jane's head came up he cleared his throat; he didn't want to startle her in the middle of her work and risk her ruining it and having to start from scratch.

She turned and called him over, showing him the tiny circuit boards she was working on. "I'm almost done. I might be able to get to the power-off tests today. The analog signature analysis will tell me if I'm on track." She went on to throw out more terminology and acronyms he'd never heard of, which all seemed very interesting to her, so he nodded and tried to look interested as well. He'd heard only one thing that was _actually_ interesting – "_almost done_."

"I'm sorry," she said, interrupting her own excursus. "I bet you never had to do any of your own soldering, huh? I'm probably boring you. How's your day gone, any progress with the battery?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Jane. There's nothing I enjoy more than listening to you discuss modern options in conformal coating. But since you asked," he said, shifting his satchel around further to the front and reaching in for the battery, "I think this is ready to be tested."

Jane swatted his arm then took the battery; Loki followed her over to another table where she searched around in a drawer and pulled out some kind of electronic device. She turned it on and connected it to the battery, which looked like a thick filmy piece of paper instead of the cylindrical or rectangular metal batteries he'd seen used in more everyday devices.

"Wow," Jane said as numbers appeared on the screen of her testing device. "This is even a little better than what we got through Stark Industries. Good job, Lucas."

Loki gave a modest nod but grinned on the inside. He'd bested Tony Stark at his own technology when he'd never even heard of a battery before a few months ago. "Do you think we'll be able to test the transmitter tomorrow, then?"

She looked skeptical of that and Loki knew her answer before she said it. "I think Monday's more realistic. Half-day tomorrow, remember?"

Loki nodded and managed to keep his expression neutral. It was only two more days. He could wait that long.

/

* * *

/

"There you are," Jane exclaimed on Sunday morning, almost bumping into Lucas when he opened the computer lab door to come out just as she was about to go in. "Finally figuring out you actually have to check your e-mail?"

"Well, I have to know when my appointment with disaster is, don't I?" he answered with a smirk.

"I guess you do. So did you find out?"

"Not yet."

"Have you had breakfast yet?"

"Ah…I have, yes."

"And do you know how to ski?"

He blinked at her in confusion, but Jane waited him out. She intended to give him as little room to get out of this as possible. "I…don't…ah, yes, I suppose so."

"Good!" Jane said with a bright grin. "Because we're going skiing this morning."

Lucas looked at her like she grown two heads. Or perhaps more like she had failed kindergarten. "Jane, perhaps you haven't noticed, but there are no mountains out there," he said, leaning against the wall next to the computer lab door.

"Not downhill skiing, obviously. Cross-country. I've only done it a couple of times myself, but Ken's got-"

"Ken? Do you actually do any work all day?"

"As I was _saying_, Ken's got a small group together and it sounded like fun, and I thought it would be good for both of us to get out of here and get some fresh air." Not to mention she was determined to pull Lucas out of his shell now. And to fix what had gone wrong on Thursday night.

Lucas started to shake his head. "Jane, I-"

"I'm not taking no for an answer."

/

* * *

/

And she didn't take no for an answer. But Loki made only a token effort to decline, anyway. He was curious. He enjoyed skiing, had from the first time he'd tried it as a boy, and he was fairly good at it. But he liked going _fast_, which meant he liked going _down._ He never understood the attraction to horizontal skiing – too slow, too much time to think about the cold. Still, he was leaving soon, and there was no way to know when he might have the chance to do something like this again – in fact, perhaps never, since he would be quite happy to never see snow or ice again. He'd planned to spend all day Sunday studying the other parts they were missing to make a complete probe, just in case, but he could give up a morning to this. It would also temporarily satisfy Jane and her apparent desire to get him just as involved in station activities as she was becoming.

_One more day_. One more day and they should be able to test the transmitter. If it worked, a probe was next. And if that probe sent back data indicating it had reached Asgard…then Loki was all but gone.

About two hours after the invitation, on a cold dark Sunday morning, Loki stood in his boots and skis and every layer of Extreme Cold Weather gear he had. This kind of skiing was no better than he remembered; it was actually worse. The texture of the snow – in reality fine ice crystals that made an annoying screeching sound as the skis moved over it – meant there was little glide, so their speed never got much above walking. The best part of all was that Ken had insisted they all wear headlamps because they would be up to a mile away from the station, and the headlamps used red lights. He hoped Jane _was_ satisfied, because he wouldn't be doing this again.

Loki waited off to the side while Jane, Ken, and the other two who had joined them risked losing fingers to take pictures of the red-lit station and Dark Sector buildings, and the sliver of moon barely visible in the twilight sky. He kept an eye on Jane, but she didn't attempt to turn the camera on him.

"What?" she asked at one point when she turned and saw him watching her.

He averted his eyes and said nothing.

She wrapped her camera back up in the insulated pouch she'd made for it, got her layers of gloves back on, awkwardly turned her skis – if they skied in the Olympics Jane wouldn't be winning any medals – then stepped toward him until she reached his side.

"Penny for your thoughts," she said through her balaclava, then shook her head. "Does anybody say that anymore? It makes me think of my grandmother."

"I don't know. But my thoughts are far more expensive than that. I doubt you can afford them."

"Okay then…one thought. Can I get a discount if it's just one thought?"

Loki gave a frustrated sigh and looked out toward the station. It was easier to tell her something than to not. "I was wondering why anyone ever chooses to live here."

Jane cleared her throat, one of those deliberate throat-clearings, done to make a point. "_You_ chose to live here."

Loki turned back toward her and flashed her the most wolfish grin he knew how to make, all well-hidden behind his balaclava. "_I_ have reasons."

"Everybody has reasons, Lucas. And it's really kind of late to be asking such things. I asked you back in Sydney if you really wanted to subject yourself to this," she said. Loki could hear the smile in her voice if not quite see it on her face.

"You were trying to get rid of me."

"Yeah, I was," she said with a light laugh. "People come here for different reasons. For the grantees like us, we come here for the chance to work on some of the coolest projects, oh, no pun intended, the coolest scientific projects in the world. Carlo told me he's wanted to come out here and work with Ice Cube ever since he first heard about it being built. The contract workers, a lot of them have really interesting stories about what brought them here. Mari got tired of not being able to fit all her stuff into her tiny New York apartment so she quit her job at an insurance office and sold most of her stuff and came here with a couple of suitcases. She just wanted to do something different for a while."

"Washing dishes nine hours per day is something different, I suppose," Loki said with distaste. He wasn't sure exactly what one did in an insurance office but it had to be better than that.

"Don't be a snob. Not everybody minds getting their hands dirty as much as you. Anyway, whatever reasons people have for coming here, I think everybody comes looking for a little bit of an adventure. Macy's lived on every continent in the world, except this one, until now. Tristan's an amateur photographer and he's hoping to get enough good photos out of this to put together a book and go professional. Gary's dad served here when he was in the Navy, and he wanted to follow in his footsteps."

He wondered how long she would have gone on if she hadn't mentioned the one whose father lay ill, still clinging to life as far as Loki knew. The father who was the son's whole reason for coming to this awful place.

"You ready?" Ken called.

Loki adjusted his poles and prepared to set off, hoping they were heading back to the station now.

"Wait a second. Lucas…I've been wanting to say something…about the other night…I _am_ your friend. I mean, I hope you-"

"Don't. There's no need. You just surprised me that day, with what you said about…about my mother. But you were right, I don't let people be friends with me. I'm glad to work with you, Jane, but I don't need you to be my friend, and I don't want to be yours." With that he pushed off after the rest of the group.

_One day. One day_, he reminded himself. If the test went well…

* * *

/

_Previews for Ch. 33 "Mass Casualty Incident": Jane is bothered by Loki's response to, well, what happens right above here...among other things; Loki has a disappointment and a bit of a temper flare-up; there's at least one Mass Casualty Incident, and at least one of them's a drill; and if you've been waiting for the countdown to hit zero, it does, but nothing happens...nothing that Our Heroes expected, anyway._

_And excerpt (oh, I debated so long on what to provide here!):_

_"Do the Frost Giants still live, Father?" _He still remembered asking this, as a boy, thinking with pride that perhaps his father had wiped them all out with _his_ bare hands. _Do the Frost Giants still live, Father?_ he asked again now in a mockery of his childish innocence. He had no idea how much damage he'd managed to do before Thor, _kind_, _merciful_ Thor, had decided to destroy Asgard's only means of reaching all of the other realms. _He loves the Frost Giants more than he loves _you_, Jane. Wouldn't you like to know that? Has he failed to mention it? You should see what they are. What he loves more than you._


	34. (33) Mass Casualty Incident

_Please note, there's a very brief mention of a *real* tragedy in here, 9/11. It's slightly awkward to mix this kind of reality with the very-much fake stuff, so I just wanted to give a heads-up in case anyone is particularly sensitive regarding that event._

* * *

**Beneath**

**Chapter Thirty-Three – Mass Casualty Incident**

Jane watched Lucas slide away, an unexpected repeat of Thursday night. She'd been waiting to try to find the right time, to say it without it feeling awkward, without making him feel uncomfortable. But that…that had actually hurt. "_I don't _want_ to be your friend?"_ They'd been working together for almost two months, and sure, they argued sometimes, but they laughed sometimes too. Over time she'd broken down and shared some personal things with him, and he'd done the same with her. What _was_ that if not friendship? She hadn't told anyone else here the things she'd told him. And she would've bet every last dime in her bank account that he hadn't told anyone else here the things he'd eventually told her. Maybe he didn't mean it. Maybe he was just defensive, maybe he didn't trust people after his experiences with his family. When the people you were supposed to trust the most violated that trust, how _could_ you trust anyone else? She'd found it shockingly easy to mistrust every person here after her experiences with SHIELD…and SHIELD certainly had played no formational role with her.

Pushing off to follow the others across the packed snow, she wondered if it could be more than that. It was true that some people just really didn't connect with others well, or at all. One of Jane's college classmates had had Asperger's Syndrome, a kind of mild autism that sometimes made it difficult to interact socially with him, even though she considered him a friend and still kept in touch. Lucas didn't seem to have any _difficulty_ interacting, though. He just seemed aloof; he _chose_ not to interact much of the time.

What had he told her about Erik? _"Stop worrying about him?"_ _That's not normal. Who says things like that, when you're legitimately worried about your friend? _There was something cold in it that rubbed her the wrong way.

_Let this go. You can't fix everything,_ she told herself in one second. _But he doesn't mean it. And _everybody_ needs a friend, whether they admit it or not._ She'd appreciated the breather from spending almost every waking moment with Lucas, but she strongly suspected that while she'd been ignoring her suspicions and getting to know more people here, he'd become completely isolated without her. And she'd missed him…sort of. After a few days of _not_ putting up with his moods and combativeness all day, she'd found him remarkably easy to get along with when they caught each other up on their work or had dinner together.

_And now this_, she thought, glaring at his back. _"I don't _want_ to be your friend."_ As if they were ten years old or something, having some petty childish fight. But they hadn't even been arguing. There was definitely something strange about him. She remembered him wearing that baseball cap, how there'd been something so odd about it, something about the way it made him look.

Jane focused on her breathing, to slow it down now that she'd caught up with the others. The silver-gray of the station, illuminated by distinctive red lights, was coming into clearer view now through the haze of the ice crystals blowing about in the breeze. She spared a quick glance over at Lucas, whose profile she could just make out. She supposed she shouldn't blame him for any oddities. If her father – perish the thought! – had branded some mark into her wrist she'd probably be a little odd, too, she figured. _Odder than I already am_, she added, smiling as she took in her beautiful but stark surroundings.

/

* * *

/

The test did _not_ go well. Loki and Jane launched their bare-bones probe late Monday morning after house mouse duties. Sent off with a slight increase in energy due to Loki's concerns about it having sufficient momentum – since he'd been stuck in Yggdrasil's trunk himself – it had indeed entered the wormhole, according to the data they reviewed that night. But Pathfinder had lost contact with the hollow probe's transmitter almost the instant it was swallowed up. There was no way to know what had happened to it, if it was still inside Yggdrasil, if it had reached Asgard or some other destination, if it floated aimlessly somewhere in space, or if it had been destroyed.

Loki kicked at the gray metal frame of the bed he stood near hard enough to break it, collapsing the bed on one end and causing Jane to jump in surprise. She tried to assure him that they would find the problem and fix it, that probably they needed to find a way to boost the power to the transmitter, that maybe they could reduce the amount of noise in the signal that Pathfinder was picking up, and probably a few more ideas she was ready to rattle off, but Loki stormed out of the jamesway before she could give them voice.

He went straight back to the station and up to his chambers to work on another battery and figure out how to make it more powerful. He vowed to neither eat nor sleep until he was done, and when he was, he would go find Jane and see if he could help somehow with the additional circuit boards she now had to make, and whatever other adjustments needed to take place.

Wednesday was the Mass Casualty Incident drill – which Jane didn't know – and Thursday was house mouse day again. Both would cost several hours. Too much time had passed already. He'd been here too long. He seethed in his room, yanking bits of plastic and wire and metal and random batteries from his desk drawer. He had burned with hatred, back on Asgard. Hatred and that awful longing, a misguided desire to prove himself. He had _burned_ with it and Thor…Thor…after so little time here, so little time with _her_… _"You can't destroy an entire race, Brother!" Can't you? So when _you_ decide to kill them all with your bare hands it's Good and Right, but when _I _want to do it – cleanly, efficiently, thoroughly – it's Horrible and Wrong. But tell me this, _Brother_, which of us has more right to end them? Which of us has more right to hate?!_

Loki slammed his fist down onto the desk, and, not constructed of the solid hardwoods of furniture on Asgard, the desktop split in half, dipping down into a wide V where his hand had landed.

"_Do the Frost Giants still live, Father?" _He still remembered asking this, as a boy, thinking with pride that perhaps his father had wiped them all out with _his_ bare hands. _Do the Frost Giants still live, Father?_ he asked again now in a mockery of his childish innocence. He had no idea how much damage he'd managed to do before Thor, _kind_, _merciful_ Thor, had decided to destroy Asgard's only means of reaching all of the other realms. _He loves the Frost Giants more than he loves _you_, Jane. Wouldn't you like to know that? Has he failed to mention it? You should see what they are. What he loves more than you._

Loki began to laugh, a laugh that would have looked like madness, had anyone been there to see it. _I should show you what I am beneath all these lies. I should take you with me. Take you to Jotunheim, if anything remains of it. Show you what I've done to all the rest of them. We'll see what happens to your talk of friendship then, won't we?_

Hideous, frightening, loathsome, this is what Jane would find them, until he spoke of erasing them from existence, and then, like Thor, she would suddenly feel the need to defend the creatures. Loki hoped that not one Frost Giant was left alive anywhere in the cosmos.

He looked down at his fist, still tightly clenched, pressed into the V of the broken desktop. He lifted it slightly, turned it over, slowly uncurled the fingers that had gone pale as death. He watched as blood returned, the red blood of the Aesir. Lies, all lies. From top to bottom, from inside to out. His gaze shifted to his left hand, in a loose fist pressing down against his leg. _At least one Frost Giant still lives._

_/_

* * *

_/_

Quiet had fallen over Asgard.

Not a metaphorical calm-before-the-storm quiet, but a literal quiet. People whispered, doors were shut carefully or more often not at all, children were sharply scolded for any sort of ruckus, livestock owners who were able employed magic to silence roosters and cattle and sheep and anything else that might make noise. Despite the magic that ensured it would not happen, fear of missing the sounding of a ram's horn was widespread.

When all efforts to resolve the conflict before the deadline had failed, Asgardians stood ready for war. Portals were sealed, Einherjar posted as guards and look-outs, warrior battalions armed and staged at key locations across the realm.

The deadline came. The deadline went. A day passed, and then another day. Nothing happened. Asgard waited in a collective hush.

Odin had not left the throne room in all that time. The throne room, of course, was massive. Sometimes he sat on the throne itself. Other times he paced the long central path leading to it. Other times he brushed past the burnt-orange sheers hanging behind the assembly areas, the sheers that provided privacy to the entrance to his official study and a handful of other small rooms on one side and supply closets and the door to the private wing of the palace on the other. Still other times he held meetings in his study, re-read key passages of texts in his library, or stood at the public entrance to the grand hall, looking out at the largely empty streets leading to the palace.

Asgard would not attack first. Asgard – his foolish sons excluded – did not attack other realms except in its own defense or in defense of a third realm under attack. Thor was coming to understand this, with his sacrifice in the defense of Jotunheim, and although he'd been somewhat disappointed in Thor's suggestion of a preemptive strike against Svartalfheim, he'd understood it, and under other circumstances might even have agreed with it, for Thor was right in a sense; a glance about the city made it instantly clear Asgard was already under attack in a manner of speaking. But such a thing could certainly not be done now, not when Asgard's trustworthiness as protector of the Nine and guarantor of peace was the very thing brought into question.

Loki was another story entirely, Odin thought with a sigh as he again made his way from the throne to the wide public entrance. Loki had sought to bring upon the Jotuns destruction the likes of which not even the Jotuns themselves had ever sought against another. But the object of Loki's wrath, of the hatred that he'd felt in his son as he killed Laufey, that Thor had spoken of when describing their confrontation as Loki corrupted the bifrost, had not been the Frost Giants. Loki hadn't attacked Jotunheim. He'd attacked himself.

Thor didn't understand this, not even Frigga did, and Odin was unwilling to tell her. He hadn't even told her that Loki had deliberately let go of Gungnir, instead letting her believe he'd simply lost his grip, and Thor had gone along with it to spare his mother the pain of what, on Asgard, would be considered the most cowardly of cowardly acts. No one else had seen what Odin saw, the depths of Loki's anger and pain as he lashed out, as he called himself a monster. Odin had wanted to explain, to reassure, to comfort, but he'd never been good with words of that sort, not like Frigga, and the right words hadn't come, and the Sleep had dragged him under. The end, after he'd woken, when Loki had been dangling below a shattered bridge, had come too fast. He should have thought of something better to say, the perfect thing that would have assured Loki that he was not seen as different, much less as a monster, that he was not a war relic, that he was _loved_…but even now, months later, Odin didn't know what those words were that would have expressed all this, and he doubted Loki would have believed them anyway. At the time, he'd hoped he was conveying love with his eyes even as he spoke a painful truth…but he only had one eye. Maybe it wasn't enough. Maybe it never had been.

He reached the entry, really a long series of open porticos, designed to be easily adjusted depending on the palace's needs. Today they were all open to view in both directions: Odin could see out and his subjects could see in. Asgard has nothing to hide. Asgard has nothing to fear. It was an illusion, however. Thick layers of magic took the place of heavy doors, magic that permitted nothing through save air, and even that was purified as it passed through. Only Odin and five others he'd designated – Thor, Frigga, Senior Strategy Advisor Tyr, First Einherjar Hergils, and Chief Palace Einherjar Jolgeir, who'd had the thankless task of keeping watch over the Odinsons in their childhood and youth, long before attaining his current position – could come and go freely. Anyone else had to be granted verbal permission to enter by one of these six. Neither physical weapons nor bursts of magic lobbed at the throne room could penetrate the shielding.

Odin watched over his kingdom as darkness approached and muted city lights came on. Teams of women had the responsibility of quickly snuffing them out should a horn sound. At the foot of the obsidian stairs to the palace, Thor stood talking with his closest friends, and after a few minutes he looked up, saw Odin, and gestured for his friends to follow him up the stairs. He had spent his time since the crossing of the deadline rotating among the battalions and checking their readiness, greeting the Einherjar and ensuring they had not spotted even the most insignificant thing that they might have dismissed as the product of an overactive imagination, and flying over Asgard in grid patterns he and Tyr had determined. Neither of them had had a moment's rest and Odin suspected the Warriors Three and the Lady Sif had not either, though it was impossible to tell from the determination in their faces and in their brisk steps as they approached.

"Father," Thor said in greeting. Odin nodded, and Thor spoke the name of each of his friends and bade them enter.

"Rise," he told them after they all went to a knee as was custom in the throne room, even with the throne itself far in the distance. "All is quiet?"

"Too quiet, All-Father," Sif said.

"We are ready for whatever comes, Your Majesty," Fandral asserted. "But we are beginning to wonder _when_ it will come," he added in a quieter voice.

"Do you think it could all be a bluff?" Thor asked, not truly believing it was possible even as he asked, but having begun to question it regardless.

"No," Odin murmured, completely still except for the slight movement of his lips and a ruffling of his hair in the light breeze as he kept watch over his realm.

"Then why do they not attack?" Volstagg asked.

"They wait for our vigilance to wane," Hogun said.

"Then we will disappoint them," Sif said, lifting her blade up to the torchlight that had just come on and inspecting it for imperfections yet again.

"A noble intention," Odin said, his gaze still locked out in the distance. "But no one can maintain this level of vigilance indefinitely."

"Heimdall can," Thor asserted. "He'll give us the warning we need to be prepared."

Odin exhaled deeply and let his attention drift from the city lights, whose path along the streets he'd been tracing. Regardless of how all this ended, he suspected that by the time it did Thor would have finally fully mastered a valuable lesson about overconfidence. He was king. Even to Thor, to his own son and heir, he was king. All of Asgard looked to him for leadership and courage and stability. For confidence. There were some things he simply could not say aloud. Some fears he could not voice. Thor would have to discover those things himself.

Odin turned to face him and put a hand on his shoulder. The lesson would likely be painful; lessons in overconfidence usually were. "I'm retiring to my chambers for dinner and some rest. We all must know and respect our limits while we still have that luxury. Get yourselves something to eat before you go out again," he said, stepping back from the group. "And work with Tyr to set up a schedule of shifts for our battalions. They'll have to sleep eventually, and I don't want them doing it all at once."

The five friends answered in a chorus of "Yes, All-Father" and one "Yes, Father," then stood in awkward silence as Odin left. Jolgeir then appeared from outside unnoticed, as he tended to do, another elite palace Einherjar at his side.

"Any change, Jolgeir?" Thor asked.

"None, my prince. We're simply making our evening rounds before we change to the night shift," he answered, gesturing the other man along his way; he took to the right and began walking the perimeter of the throne room in the direction of the private wing.

Thor nodded, and had an idea. "When you're done, can you meet us in the kitchens? We have to put the warriors on shifts of some sort as well, perhaps you can help."

Jolgeir nodded thoughtfully. "I suspect it isn't quite the same, but I would be honored to be of any assistance I can."

"Thank you, old friend," Thor said, his face lifting into a half-smile. "You have always been there when I needed you."

"Even when you didn't want me there," the Chief Palace Einherjar said with a light laugh.

"Off with you," Thor said, waving a hand out toward the throne room; with a chuckle Jolgeir headed off to the left in the direction of the offices.

Volstagg laughed as well, but it quickly became awkward and it died away. "Ah, Thor, I'm always in favor of a fine raid on a kitchen, but…shouldn't we get back out there? Wherever the attack comes, whenever it comes, it won't be in here."

Thor nodded. "I know. But we'll do as Father said. Go on to the kitchens; I'll go find Tyr and ask him to join us."

/

* * *

/

"Hey, what's up with you and all your scrounging around for stuff?"

Jane looked up from the box of wiring and copper plating odds and ends she was indeed scrounging around in. Wright had entered the Science Lab and was striding over to his desk, which was right next to the minimally-organized supply shelf she'd pulled the box from. He sat down to log onto his computer.

"I'm, uh, making a few upgrades to one of the devices I brought out here. Trying to, anyway." She put the box back on the shelf and stood; Wright's monitor caught her eye. "Is that your blog?" She knew Selby and Wright had started a joint blog for Wright's two sisters, both of whom were elementary school teachers who were teaching some science lessons through the South Pole experience. He'd asked at one point if she wanted to join it, too, but at that time she'd been avoiding everyone but Lucas.

"Yeah, one of the classes sent in some more questions. Thought I'd try to hammer out some answers. Wanna see?"

"Sure," Jane said, and came to watch over his shoulder as he slowly scrolled through the questions the kids submitted, third-graders this time. "Polar bears?" she read with a laugh.

"They're eight, Jane, give 'em a break. So they've got the wrong Pole."

"Hey," she said, swatting his shoulder with the back of her hand. "I wasn't making fun. It's great they're asking."

"Yeah, well, somebody asked last month, too. That and penguins. We get a lot of penguin questions."

"Mm-hm, makes sense. Right Pole, a liiiiiiittle too far from the water." Jane smiled as Wright scrolled up through the blog. _Wouldn't it be nice to see a penguin_, she thought, suddenly keenly missing the absence of signs of life here beyond the fifty residents for the first time. _The closest we've got is that one in the Arts and Crafts Room, and it went missing._ "Hey, stop," she suddenly said, something in a photo that went past grabbing her attention.

"What, this? It's from the sunset party."

"Yeah…hey, I'm sorry, Wright, but can you please take that picture down?" Jane asked, staring at the face in profile near the left edge of the frame.

"What? Why?"

"Um, it's…kind of hard to explain I guess, but Lucas is in it, and he really doesn't like having his picture taken. He's got family problems, and…it's personal, but he doesn't want his family to know where he is. Can you just take that one down? I'm sure you have some others, right?"

Wright looked up at her skeptically. "Family problems, huh? I'm not surprised he's got some sort of problems."

"Wright…"

"All right, all right, fine, I'll take it down. Although I highly doubt his family's going to stumble across this blog followed by precisely thirty-two people, twenty-two of them pre-teens. Hey, listen, you need any help with those upgrades?"

"What?"

"The upgrades, to one of your DIY-projects out there at the DSL. You need any help? I'm pretty good with-"

Jane and Wright both jumped at the blaring of the station's fire alarm. It was the week designated for the MCI drill, Wednesday, as it turned out, so both knew what this was. Their conversation was forgotten as they wished each other good luck and hurried out into the corridor with everyone else in the area, both down to their own rooms to get into their cold-weather gear.

The fire alarm fell silent before she reached her room. _"The fire alarm has sounded in the elevated station, level one, B3 lounge,"_ Rodrigo announced from Comms over the all-call loudspeakers, then repeated the same message. As Jane reached her room and started yanking on Carhartts and a sweater – and wondering why she had to even though she wasn't going to have to go outside – the fire alarm sounded again, alternating with Rodrigo's message, which next came in over the radio she now had clipped to the Carhartts.

Jane rushed on to the emergency equipment storage area and got into her bunker gear – light brown jacket and pants with reflective trim – the red flash hood which was similar to her balaclava but left more of the face exposed, the big black boots with yellow steel toes, and yellow helmet. Jane got her arms through the straps of the harness holding the air bottle to her back on with the help of fellow Fire Team member Su-Ji, and once she had it all cinched up she returned the favor. She grabbed a small emergency radio to clip to her jacket, a mask, a flashlight, a fire extinguisher, and an ax and took off toward the announced muster point in the gym across from the B3 lounge, Su-Ji close behind her.

When she reached the gym out of breath from the extra weight and reported to Gary, the Fire Team Leader, the area was already full of activity. The "Hasty Team" first responders were directing others to appropriate staging areas and Trauma Team members were arriving with first aid equipment and stretchers for the expected casualties.

"Comms, this is Gary, Fire Team is standing by with seven team members now present," Gary said into his station radio. He directed two firefighters in for the primary search, then turned to Jane and Su-Ji. "Foster, Lee, you're up."

Jane nodded, and it was like SHIELD's hastily-arranged fire training program all over again. She felt a rush of excitement race up her spine along with a sudden shot of adrenaline. It was all a drill, and although unlike in her fire training there wouldn't be any _actual _fire, still she wanted to do well, and there would be smoke and poor visibility…and Lucas, probably trying to make her life difficult. She and Sue did a quick buddy check on their gear, then pulled on their masks. Jane stepped into the hall, took an experimental breath, felt her lungs fill with air from the bottle on her back, and reached for the doorknob.

/

* * *

/

Loki and the other two victims helped Zeke move out of the lounge items the station wouldn't want to see actually damaged, like the flat-screen TV they'd watched _Miracle _on last week, then helped him set up an entire false wall along one side of the lounge. Zeke had rigged it with wiring and blinking red lights to vaguely simulate an electrical fire, "just for the heck of it," he'd said. Apparently Zeke, unlike Loki, didn't have anything better to do with his time. Loki shook his head and did what Zeke told him to do like the good little Midgardian assistant he was pretending to be. The final bit of preparation was for Zeke to turn on the smoke machine, a black metal box about the size of the toaster in the galley, then mutter under his breath when it took a couple of minutes to kick in. Loki had hoped to have a chance to examine how the thing worked, but Zeke had kept him too busy.

Zeke then left for Comms, one floor directly overhead, from which he would serve as "Incident Commander," while Loki and his fellow victims got into position on the floor and waited, Loki right behind a chair, not far from the "fire." Loki crossed his ankles and placed his hands over his chest, drumming his fingers there in annoyed boredom. A few seconds later the fire alarm sounded – an obnoxious overly loud raucous noise, familiar from a few false alarms – and then a message that seemed to repeat ad nauseum. And all Loki could do was lay there on the floor and listen. At least the floor wasn't terribly dirty. He knew, because he'd vacuumed it on Monday.

"_This is a drill. This is a drill. All personnel not directly involved in the drill may stand down at this time," _Zeke announced over the station's speakers.

_And good thing it's a drill_, Loki thought with a dark smile, _since I've been lying here several minutes and no one has yet come to rescue me_. He sighed. _How ridiculous._

He heard noises at the door, then it opened and he heard two male voices, saying aloud as though reading from a script that there was too much smoke for them to go in, they'd have to wait for the Fire Team. Loki smiled at that, because that meant Jane. Even if he was now largely avoiding her, there was no reason he shouldn't take what enjoyment he could get from this, and he expected to get a number of good laughs at her expense from the whole experience.

Then, afterward, they would finish up the work necessary to try again to get the transmitter to work after entering – and exiting – Yggdrasil. He had already finished the battery; now that he knew how to reshape the original materials into their new structure it had taken him only a day, even with modifying it slightly to increase its power, partly through Midgardian technology and partly with an added wisp of magic. Jane's work on another set of circuit boards was going more quickly, too, and she had expected to be finished this afternoon. Of course, she hadn't known her work would be interrupted. She had e-mailed her Australian friend for permission to use one of his experimental filters on Pathfinder to help it focus in on the transmitter's signal, and Loki had already approved the e-mail, and, just before the start of preparations for the MCI drill, he'd also approved Young-Soo's response to Jane with his agreement. If Young-Soo hadn't agreed, Loki would have agreed for him; it was easily enough done.

After what seemed an interminably long time – given that he was supposed to be lying here helpless, dying of smoke inhalation – the door opened again, and, unfortunately again for himself if this were real, the two men began their search on the left side of the room. That meant they wouldn't find him _or_ the source of the fire quickly.

"Ow!" one of his fellow victims called. Loki suspected he'd been kicked accidentally by men who couldn't see him lying on the ground. That began a flurry of radio communication, and then – if Loki stretched the limits of his vision to see through the smoke – one firefighter was helping the victim up and to the door, before rushing back in to continue the search with his partner. By then the second victim had already been found, but this one was in more serious condition and the firefighters called for a spine board just after two more firefighters entered and began moving quickly through the room to the right. Two _short_ firefighters. Loki grinned and watched them from the floor. They spotted the "fire," communicated their discovery, and sprayed their chemical fire suppressant on it.

"You think that's supposed to be out?" a woman's voice said; Loki recognized it as Su-Ji Lee's, the woman working at MAPO, although it was muffled by her mask.

"I don't know. The light's still- wait, it stopped blinking. Okay, I think that's supposed to mean it's out," Jane said.

"Secondary search?"

"Right. Let's do it from the ground."

Both women got down to the floor on their hands and knees and started to crawl around. They called out to ask if anyone (anyone being _him_) could hear them, and Loki tracked their positions by their voices; the smoke machine was still going full force and visibility had dropped so much even Loki could only make out the vague outline of their bulky shapes, so he gave up trying and relied on his ears. Su-Ji, he realized, was going to find him first, and he slowly, silently bent his knees and drew his feet back toward him along the floor, because what would be the fun in that?

He heard Jane approach toward his head and silently extended his legs out again. Once back in position he closed his eyes, which was a good decision, as it turned out.

"I think I see…" Loki flinched as a hand in rough gloves came down on his head, one finger over an eyelid. "Sue! Got one. Fire Team Lead, this is Jane. I've found a third victim. Will advise." Loki could hear Su-Ji, or "Sue" as most people seemed to call her, coming back toward his feet.

"Can you hear me? Can you open your eyes?" she asked through her breathing mask.

Loki lay there still, trying not to laugh as he pretended to be unconscious. He could almost imagine he was a boy again, playing games like this. He wondered if Jane could tell who he was. Well, who she _thought_ he was.

"Stop grinning. Unconscious people don't grin like that."

_Hm. Apparently she does._ His eyes popped open and he was gratified to see her startle back; she'd been hovering very close over his face. "I'm unable to breathe," he told her calmly.

"Then how are you talking?"

"I need air."

"It's not my job to get you air. It's my job to get you out of here before you die from smoke inhalation."

"If I'm not breathing, I'm not inhaling any smoke."

"That means you're already…will you shut up?"

"_Both_ of you shut up. If he's not breathing, we need to get him out of here ASAP. We need to call for assistance."

Loki shot her a venomous look that she couldn't see. That wouldn't do at all. He wanted to see _Jane_ try to get him out of here, and had requested to play one of the unconscious victims just for that reason. "I think my heart just stopped beating." He closed his eyes again.

"No time. I can do this. Here, help me get this under him."

Loki wanted to look but kept his eyes closed. He _was_ supposed to be near death, after all. Su-Ji came around to where Jane was and he felt hands on his shoulders and under his arms, hands that began tugging the top half of his body slightly upward.

"He's heavier than he looks," Su-Ji said; Jane answered with no more than a grunt.

Unidentifiable sounds came from above his head, and suddenly he felt himself lurching further up and forward as something cinched tight over his chest and under his arms. His eyes reflexively opened, and he saw that the "something" was some kind of sturdy plastic in a tubular shape. Before he could think further about it he was being dragged along the floor. Out of defensive instinct he reached for the plastic sling to pull it off, but Su-Ji, who was still at his level – Jane was now standing – smacked at his hands with her gloved ones.

"You're supposed to be unconscious, remember?"

He glared at her and she glared back, this time close enough to see it.

"Comms, Fire Team. Evacuating _unresponsive_ victim."

Loki rolled his eyes and let himself go completely limp. His head fell backward but he kept his eyes open to see Jane struggling to keep dragging him around another chair and toward the door. She was definitely struggling, breathing heavily and straining backward. If he were to suddenly decrease his body's weight, she would go flying backward in a heap. Tempting, but he would surely pay for it with forfeited magic. And, he had to admit, he was impressed. He never would have imagined she could do this. He closed his eyes again and started to hum one of the tunes from _Miracle_.

He began to hear other voices and realized Jane was pulling him out of the room. Su-Ji was reporting on his condition to someone; Jane was nearby panting for breath. Loki grimaced as hands were suddenly all over him, easing a spine collar onto his neck and sliding him onto the rigid spine board – the entertainment portion of this exercise was over. He felt the straps cinch and pull tight over his chest and waist and legs; he grit his teeth to force himself to tolerate the restraints. It was even more difficult than he'd expected. He was supposed to keep his eyes closed, to play unconscious, but neither his play-acting ability nor the "integrity of the exercise," as Zeke kept referring to it, were his concern. He needed to constantly remind himself where he was, and more importantly, where he was not. _Not_ on Asgard, _not_ tied to rocks, _not_ waiting for a drip from a serpent's fang, _not _anywhere else where he was actually in any danger. _Ancient history_, he reminded himself, noting also how flimsy the restraints were; freeing himself would require no effort at all.

He was lifted onto a stretcher, and once there, tested that assumption just because he could – with a sharp but small movement of one leg he snapped the restraint there and no one noticed. He looked up and saw Jane watching him, holding her helmet in her hand. Had _she_ seen? "Well done, Jane Foster," he said, swallowing heavily at the end.

She looked at him with odd confusion, and if she intended to say anything else she never got the chance. The trauma team was whisking him away to Club Med for play-acted medical evaluation.

/

* * *

/

"Thanks, Gary," Jane said, relinquishing her air cylinder to the Fire Team Leader, who'd offered to get everyone's bottle refilled for them. She stretched her back, glad to have some of the extra weight gone. Now that her portion of the drill was over, the adrenaline rush was also over and she felt tired from the exertion in the thin air. Her gloves were already stuffed into one pocket, her sling rolled back up into the other pocket. She yanked the red flash hood off and ran her hands over her hair to smooth it down; it was damp with sweat and the station's air felt refreshingly cool on it. She caught Sue's eye and the two started to laugh. Jane stuck out her hand and Sue shook it.

"Jane," a voice from behind her said; she turned to see Austin, one of her fellow Fire Team members. "Good trick with the tubing thing." He held up his hand for a high-five.

"Thanks," Jane said, high-fiving him back. Of course, she'd hardly come up with it herself; her instructor had taught it to her and even provided the sling. To Austin's left, behind him, she saw Mari disappear into the Arts and Crafts Room. She'd barely caught the movement, but she thought she'd seen Mari wipe at her eyes. "See you tomorrow morning for the debriefing?"

Austin nodded and moved on to high-five the next person; Jane slipped past him and down the hall to check on Mari, whom she found sitting at one of the crafts tables, elbows resting on the table, head in hands.

"Hey, you okay?" Jane asked, hesitating at the door. She didn't know Mari that well, but it wasn't like Mari, or anyone else, had her closest friends here with her instead.

Mari stood up and gave a small smile. "Yeah, sorry. This whole thing just got to me a little. I mean, I know it's all fake and everything, but…"

"Do you want to talk about it? We're all done out there."

"There's not so much to tell. I guess that's the problem, actually. That sounds weird…" Mari took a deep breath and shoved her hands in the pockets of her Carhartts.

"No, go ahead," Jane said, leading Mari back over to the table. They both sat down, and Jane opened up her jacket for a little more relief from the heat.

"It's so stupid. It's just…I was on vacation during 9/11. Covered in suntan lotion in the Bahamas. My last hurrah after my internship before starting my new job in lower Manhattan. Then, two days after I empty out my desk, it gets smashed up by some kind of creatures chasing each other through the office. And it's just…I don't know how to explain it, but…I feel like I should've been there. My mother says it's 'survivors' guilt' but I didn't survive anything, you know? I wasn't even there. _This_ is the closest I've come to a real disaster."

Jane empathized with Mari and tried to comfort her as best she could, mostly by sharing a somewhat sanitized version of how she, too, had "missed" that disaster. Jane certainly understood the strange form of guilt. SHIELD's luring her away infuriated her, that she'd been kept from trying to do something to help Erik, hadn't even known Erik had been in trouble until it was all over. Realistically, she knew there was nothing she could've done anyway. Once Loki took over Erik's mind, no science was involved that she understood, and hitting him over the head would certainly never have occurred to her. And if she'd been there, maybe Loki would've taken over _her_ mind, too. She shuddered at the thought and gave Mari another hug, this one more for herself than for Mari.

The two parted, and Jane headed to the emergency equipment storage room to put back everything she'd taken, but she couldn't get Loki and what he'd done to Erik out of her mind. Loki and what he'd done to Thor. Loki and whatever exactly he'd done to Jotunheim. Loki and what he'd done to his other brother. Loki and what he'd done to those people in Stuttgart. Loki and what he'd done to the people in Manhattan, what he'd tried to do to the entire planet.

Something about it was bothering her, but she couldn't put her finger on it, and it was giving her a headache, bad enough that she missed the hanger she was trying to put her safety gear jacket on and had to pick it up from the floor.

She wandered back to her room and leaned against her closed door for a moment before stepping out of the Carhartts and sweater and thermal socks, getting down to a T-shirt, an old blue and white checkered flannel, and jeans, and slipping on sneakers.

She thought back to the end of the drill – the end of her part of it, anyway. Lucas had looked uncomfortable on the back board. Anyone would be, she supposed, but he'd been uncomfortable enough that he'd actually managed to pop open one of the clasps on his restraints, deliberately, it had appeared. Maybe he had a phobia about it or something. Then again, given the glimpse she'd had of his father's bizarre cruelty, maybe he had a more rational reason to dislike being in that position.

Jane let her eyelids flutter closed for a moment. That wasn't a line of thought she wanted to let her imagination pursue.

Loki had been giving some pompous speech about freeing people from freedom when he'd used his tesseract-powered magic wand to rob Erik of his freedom. It was the one thing he'd told her about the whole ordeal, and the only reason she knew anything Loki had said when he'd first come through that unstable portal. SHIELD had given her all the video of it they had, in the hopes it would aid her analysis, but they had no audio, no transcript. She'd watched it again and again – not just the part they _wanted_ her to watch again and again, the opening of the portal, but the part when Loki had touched that thing, almost gently, to Erik's chest, and how he'd stiffened for a moment, perhaps in fear or pain or shock, and then been lost to Loki's will. She'd watched it and wished so badly she could somehow undo it and spare Erik what was to come, because he hadn't been the same since. She'd watched it so much she could picture it as clearly as though she'd been there.

Except she couldn't, she realized.

She could picture Erik and his awful moment of fear, but not Loki.

And then she realized she couldn't picture Loki _at all_. She'd seen plenty of other footage. Of him in Stuttgart. Of him on board SHIELD's flying fortress. Poorer quality images of him in New York. She could clearly picture that strange cylindrical cell he'd been in, but when she tried to remember _him_ inside it all she got was more pounding in her head.

Jane went over to her desk and powered up her laptop, grabbing her full water bottle in the meantime and gulping down half the contents. _"Jane Foster. Jane Foster."_ The words clanged about her mind as though she were standing right underneath church bells. _That was _Lucas_,_ _just now_, she remembered. _"Jane Foster, Erik Selvig, Darcy…" That was _Thor. _Thor called us by our full names. He didn't know Darcy's last name…_

Jane felt herself getting dizzy from the intensity of the headache. _If this keeps up I'll have to go to Club Med. But they're probably still busy with the drill…Lucas is there…_ She navigated to the folder where she kept all of the video files SHIELD had sent. Her finger hovered over the mouse ready to open the one titled "Arrival," but when the folder opened it was empty. She stared at it for a few seconds, closed it, opened it again, still empty. She wasn't thinking very clearly through the headache, and it took a moment for her to realize that however she'd managed to lose those files, it didn't really matter, because plenty of video could be found online. Not _that_ one, of course, but the Stuttgart incident had been captured on personal video devices. She glanced at the time on the lower right of her computer screen; the satellite window was still open.

Streamed videos didn't work well here and were discouraged, but all she needed was the still images visible in the search results, anyway. In YouTube she typed in "Stuttgart" and "kneel." In the first image he was too small, too dark. The second image had her riveted. Her throat tightened; her breaths were loud and shallow. He wore heavy ornate layered clothing, and a gold helmet with two enormous horns. The helmet obscured much of his head, part of his face. An image of Lucas in his baseball cap came to mind.

And then it all came back. Loki on the helicarrier. Loki when he took Erik. When he hadn't had that helmet on.

Jane jumped back from her computer as though it could burn her, knocking over the chair she'd been sitting on and not even noticing it. Loki's image – severe and alien and terrifying – melded into one much more familiar, one much closer. In growing fear battling with disbelief she glanced at her door. The one without even the simplest of locks on it. _This can't be right_, she told herself even as she looked back at the computer screen. _I'm imagining this. It can't be right. It can't be right._

Lucas's face stared back at her from the screen, ordering people to kneel.

/

* * *

/

"Thor, wait!" Sif called from inside.

Thor paused to turn, just outside the portico, only two steps down what was the equivalent of about three flights of stairs to ground level.

"I'm coming with you. But you have to let me out."

"You may come through," he said immediately, adding a quick apology. "I keep forgetting. But you don't need to come with me. Go, get something to eat. Rest for a while."

"Is the prince of Asgard exempt from the rules?" she asked, the two of them now side-by-side.

"Rules?"

"You're impossible. No one walks around outside alone. Remember now?" she prodded, eyebrows raised toward her hairline.

Thor laughed. "Sif, I hardly think I need-"

"Choose your next words very carefully," Sif said in a mock-threatening tone, eyes narrowing sharply.

Thor gave her a pointed look and extended an arm out in invitation. She started making her way down the stairs and Thor followed. "_Anyone_ to watch over me when I have Mjolnir," he finished, hefting the hammer and easily tossing it high into the air.

Sif rolled her eyes and at Thor. "You always did treat rules like they were option-"

Thor missed whatever Sif said next and realized he no longer felt the ground beneath his feet. He couldn't hear anything and couldn't see anything. He held out his hand but Mjolnir wouldn't return to it. Horrific pain suddenly shot up his back, then something hit his head and he was too stunned to move. An instant later sound came roaring back, ringing and clanging, more like an echo of a sound than a sound itself. Thor's eyes shot open, but it took a moment to make sense of what he saw: the darkening sky at an odd slant with the horizon, unfamiliar with upside-down landmarks. He felt with his hands at his side to try to figure out where he was, and through a fog that tightly gripped at his thoughts he eventually realized that the cold angled stone underneath him was the stairs to the palace, and he was lying at an awkward angle on them, his head lower than his feet. Though it made his stomach lurch, he forced his head upward to try to see what had happened.

There was Sif, unmoving, face down on the stairs, one arm at an unnatural angle, her body a little higher up than him, a little closer to the entrance to the throne room.

He tore his eyes away from her and followed the stairs upward. On the other side of the porticos, everything was black. He could see nothing. The fog's grip on him loosened. The layers of shielding let purified air pass in and out, but nothing else. A terrible noise. A massive rush of air. Everything black on the inside. Thor's eyes went wide and he began struggling against his own uncooperative body to push himself up.

An explosion. From _inside_ the throne room.

The Gjallarhorn sounded, clear and low, mournful.

_We are at war._

* * *

_/_

_Hmmm, and there you have it. Some of it, anyway. I would love to hear from you. I hope you enjoyed it. ;-)_

_Excerpt for Ch. 34, "Panic" (Jane POV): _

_Confident, relaxed, calm. He doesn't know._

"That was fast," he said, falling into step beside her as she continued down the corridor.

"Yeah, Rodrigo was busy. They're still in there going over the drill. I guess they have to get ready for tomorrow's debriefing."_See? Easy. Nothing to worry about. Just Lucas. Grad student. Assistant._


	35. (34) Panic

_Because it came up in a review and in a couple post-review chats, in case you've forgotten - it's been a while! - the reason Jane did _not _recognize Loki all this time before now is covered at the beginning of "Chapter 7: Acquaintance." Loki's concern that it may not hold under certain conditions (pretty much the ones that happened) was mentioned in passing in I think two other chapters. Regarding Baldur - yes, in my take on all this Baldur existed (he died a little over 1,000 years ago), but it didn't go quite as recorded in mythology; it'll be covered here later, after another big development that's to come (related to the "hidden plot" I have hinted at from time to time, really an additional plotline that won't be made explicit for a while yet)._

/

* * *

**Beneath**

**Chapter Thirty-Four – Panic**

Jane stared at the door. Loki – _Loki!_ – was somewhere not far beyond it. Her room was near the end of the A-1 berthing wing closest to the station's interior; the medical facilities where Lucas – _Loki!_ – had been taken were just opposite the door to the berthing wing. _The medical facilities where he was taken after _I _dragged him out of the B-3 lounge. After…_ Images started flashing through her mind, too fast to process – Lucas, Loki, with her in the galley, in the DSL, in the jamesway, in the Science Lab, in the Arts and Crafts Room, in the machinist's shop at MAPO, in the bathroom, in _her_ room. She sucked in a breath. She'd been _alone_ with _Loki_, in her _room_. She stared down at her chair on its back on the floor, blocking the narrow space between her desk and her bed. He'd sat on that chair. She looked at her desk. He'd asked about some of the things on it. She looked up at the poster of a Malibu sunset on the wall above the desk. He'd helped her _hang_ it.

Denial came rushing back. _This is absurd!_ _Lucas _can't_ be_…

The screen on her laptop had gone dark; she frantically rubbed her index finger over the mousepad to wake it up. And there it was again. There _he _was again. No matter how impossible it seemed, she had spent every day of the last nearly two months with Thor's brother Loki, last seen trying to take over the planet and killing anyone who got in his way.

_Thor_. More memories flooded in. _This is the whole reason he showed up in Norway. And in New Zealand._ She'd thought about those visits from time to time, but when she did, she thought about cheesecake and intact coffee cups and auroras and kissing a king. Not about Loki. _"Don't worry, Thor. Loki won't find me, Loki can't follow me where I'm going." He called me!_ she suddenly remembered. _He even called me! And I told him not to worry, again! Don't worry, no "troublesome" visitors here, isn't that what he called him? I was on the _phone_ with him and I assured him Loki wasn't here!_ She remembered walking out of Comms after that phone call, and Loki waiting outside, right out in the corridor where he could see her as soon as she emerged. _Did he know? No…he asked. "Who were you talking to, Jane?" _In her memory the question sounded sinister.

_Talking to…_ Jane's eyes flew to the telephone on her desk. She could call other station phones with it, or, with a phone card and an internet connection, she could call anywhere in the world. She had Peter Larson's number in Tromso. She had Tony Stark's and Pepper Potts's numbers. She had Maria Hill's number in case of emergency, and plenty of people below her. What she didn't have was a phone card.

On her laptop she pulled up the VOIP program she used – no need for a phone card there – and found herself paralyzed with indecision. She wanted to call _Thor_. But since that wasn't possible…Tony, she finally decided. If Thor had last been to see Tony, maybe Tony knew how to reach him. _And if not, maybe the Iron Man suit works in really, really cold temperatures…_

She opened the file with his number, copied and pasted it in, and clicked on "Dial." She chewed anxiously on the knuckle of her left index finger as she waited. _"Unable to establish connection."_ With an angry huff she tried again, and got the same error message. Her face fell in a pained grimace then as she remembered that Carlo and Austin had sent a huge data package through this morning, taking up nearly all of the station's allocated bandwidth. _E-mail, then. Short, text-only, it should get through._ She glanced at the time; about half an hour remained before they lost the satellite window for the day. Copy-paste, copy-paste, copy-paste…now she didn't have to choose. She put every SHIELD address in she had, plus Tony, Pepper, and Bruce Banner.

"_Subject: Loki here at South Pole"_

Jane shook her head.

"_Subject: Loki here at South Pole – not a joke"_

She typed out a few quick sentences fueled more by panic than rational thought, punctuated by phrases like "I'm serious" and "I mean it." She clicked send and stood there waiting. 3:02 here, 9:02 PM yesterday on the East Coast, middle of the night in Norway. Surely _someone_ would see the e-mail come up on a computer or hear it ping on a cell phone. It seemed to take an hour before even a minute ticked by on her laptop's clock.

Jane suddenly jerked upright from where she'd bent over her desk. _You idiot! The Iridium!_ The sat phones used different satellites than their internet connections – they were available 24-7 if there was a legitimate need. "I think this is a legitimate need," Jane murmured.

She stepped over her chair and was at the door, hand on knob, when she remembered that Comms would still be buzzing with activity from the MCI drill. Even if the drill were concluded – and it probably was by now – Rodrigo and Zeke and maybe the team leads would be over there going through everything and logging it all for the report that would have to be written up. There was no way she could just burst in there and tell them Loki was here, or make that phone call in front of them – they wouldn't understand, probably wouldn't even believe her. And it wasn't like they could do anything about it. There were no weapons here, as far as she knew. Even if there were, SHIELD agents at the New Mexico facility had fired automatic rifles at him and it hadn't slowed him down in the slightest. Maybe there was still a way, though. She could put on her calmest face, go down there, and ask Rodrigo if she could borrow an Iridium phone.

Jane was practicing her calm face when a knock came on the door. The calm face disappeared and the panicked one replaced it.

Only one person here had ever knocked on her door.

/

* * *

/

Thor squeezed his eyes shut for an instant to try to beat back the pounding in his head, then redoubled his effort to get to his feet, something that was requiring far more time and effort than it should have. When he made it up, he promptly collapsed back to one knee in a wave of dizziness. On the second effort he got to his feet and stayed there. It felt like it had taken an hour but in reality no more than a minute or two had passed.

Far too long, though, for the sound Thor only now heard: two warbling notes from a ram's horn. He looked to his right and saw the reason for the odd warbling – an Einherjar guard was racing up the obsidian stairs toward him and had been sounding the alarm as he ran.

Thor looked back at the entrance to the throne room. The sound of the horn seemed to have cleared much of the remaining fog from his mind. An explosion. _Inside_ the palace. Where his father was. His mother. Three of his closest friends. He didn't know whose name to call first, so he called none aloud but held out his hand to call Mjolnir to deal with whatever foe had managed to get inside. He had no idea where the hammer was, but it flew to his open hand anyway with reassuring force, reaching him at the same time as the guard.

"My prince, your head! Are you well?"

Thor felt the back of his head with his left hand; it came away red, but it was nothing, hardly enough to keep him from doing what he had to do. "I'm fine. See to the Lady Sif," he said with a glance toward his dear friend, still not moving, arm still at that unsettling angle. There was nothing he could do for her right now besides get her to a healer, and there were others trapped inside, probably likewise injured, with unknown foes around them. "Then join me inside, and quickly. We don't know who's in there, or how many there are." He let Mjolnir carry him up the twenty or so stairs between him and the arched portico entrance. "I give you permission to enter!" he remembered to call at the last moment, and then he was inside the palace, coughing on air thick with dust.

He could barely see his hand in front of his face. He advanced slowly, ignorant of where the enemy might be hiding.

"Thor," a rough voice said, followed by a cough. Thor spun to his right, and out of the black air emerged Volstagg, the white of his eyes standing out against his dark gray skin, hair, and clothing.

"What happened? Have you seen the others?" Thor demanded in a loud whisper. The only other sounds were their breathing and an ominous groaning that seemed to be coming from the walls themselves.

"Fandral and Hogun were right beside me, but…there was an explosion. I never saw anyone else. The two Einherjar on patrol, the two standing watch by the throne. Did Sif make it out?"

"She did, but she's hurt. I'm not sure how badly. Where was the explosion?"

Volstagg shook his head, forced to rest his voice as a deep cough racked him. "I've no idea," he finally said. "It couldn't have been far though. It threw me into the wall back there."

"Was my father-"

"Shush! No. Don't even think it. No, he'd left already. I'm sure he is safe."

"But if we're under attack from within, we have to-"

"There was no one else here, Thor. No attackers. No battle. Just an explosion."

"_Just an explosion." In the throne room of Asgard!_ Thor shook off the outrage; there was no time for it. "Come on then," he said, clapping a hand over Volstagg's shoulder. "We have to find the others."

They started moving forward, a few feet away from each other, still carefully for the floor was littered with debris that couldn't be seen. The two of them called out names, Fandral, Hogun, and Jolgeir; neither knew the names of the other three Einherjar who'd been in the throne room.

"Here," a voice said weakly after they'd made it further in. Thor increased his speed and his shin struck something big and unyielding, almost sending him toppling over it. He bent down closer and saw it was a thick gold-wrapped stone pillar lying on the ground – it was supposed to be holding up the ceiling. Thor glanced upward but could see nothing, and then he heard the voice again, and realized it was Hogun's and it was coming from underneath the pillar.

"Hogun, hold on, we'll have this off you in no time," Volstagg said from beside Thor.

"If we lift, can you move?" Thor asked, bracing his legs for the feat; the pillar was perhaps four stories tall, but he hoped it had broken into smaller, more manageable pieces in its collapse.

"I…don't know," came the quiet answer, followed by a gasp of breath.

"Prince Thor!"

"Here!" he called over his shoulder, keeping his feet planted. Whoever was arriving could help Hogun get free of the pillar. "Volstagg, lift!" At his command they both bent low and slipped arms under and over the pillar as best they could, struggling to lift it, straining arms and legs. Thor couldn't see either end of the pillar. If they couldn't do this from here, they might need to try to find the closest end and try lifting from there.

"Prince Thor!" came the voice again, the Einherjar from outside, who'd finally managed to sound the alarm, who'd gone to take care of Sif.

"Here!" he answered again through clenched jaw, trying to focus only on lifting, and not on Sif for whom he could do nothing, not on Fandral who was still missing, not on his parents whom he could only hope were safe, not on how dizzy and light-headed he was beginning to feel.

The guard finally found him through the dark haze of the dust; Thor heard the _oomph_ when he stumbled over something close behind him. He started to speak but Thor cut him off.

"Get my friend out from under here," he ordered brusquely, no energy to spare to put any more formalism or politeness into it.

"Friend? Oh! Yes, I…I've got him."

"Volstagg, everything you've got, now!"

Volstagg grunted and the pillar inched further up – everything he had was quite a lot; few besides Thor were stronger. Thor, too, was giving it everything, but he was certain he was not at full strength. His arms and legs were screaming for relief and his entire body burned for air he didn't seem to be getting enough of. Something wet was dripping down the left side of his face and he couldn't tell whether it was sweat or blood.

He heard rustling noises from below. "He's out, he's out! He's clear!" the Einherjar shouted.

"Hands free!" Thor shouted – or tried, it came out instead as a hoarse grunt – and immediately dropped the pillar, then fell to his knees. He shifted around to sit on the ground, his back to the pillar. "How is he?" he asked, at the same time as Volstagg called Hogun's name and went to one knee at his side.

"His legs are badly damaged. He needs a healer."

"He's grimacing, Thor," Volstagg said.

Thor heard the smile in his voice, although he couldn't see it through the haze. "Then he will be fine!" he declared, then began pushing himself back to his feet. "If you'd said otherwise I might have worried. Hogun, be well."

"My prince," the Einherjar said, "guards and warriors and healers are amassing outside, but they cannot enter."

Supporting himself against the pillar Thor cursed inwardly. _This magic was meant to _protect_ us. We were better off without it._ "I give all sworn warriors and Einherjar permission to enter and exit as often as they need to this day. Healers should remain outside to treat the wounded. It isn't safe in here. Stay with Hogun and ensure he gets to a healer. Tell the others that no attackers were seen but we can't know for certain until we've made a thorough search of the palace, and we must account for everyone else who was here. There were at least five others in this room. And after that we must clear everyone out and ensure the structure is stable."

"Yes, my prince!" The Einherjar snapped to attention and pressed his right fist to his chest before yelling out to the growing crowd outside that had by now realized they were no longer being prevented from passing through the porticos.

Thor realized he had seen the Einherjar's movements; the dust was beginning to settle. He reached down for Mjolnir. "Let's move," he said to Volstagg, who nodded and stood.

/

* * *

/

Jane stood frozen, hand still on the doorknob.

"Jane?" Loki called from the other side, quietly as was the custom in the berthing wing.

"_The drill is over. All personnel stand down from the drill."_

Jane's eyes went wide in alarm. Station all-call announcements were followed by radio all-call announcements. Hers was clipped to her belt. It would give her away. There was no way she could open the door; in her panic she couldn't even remember what the last thing she'd had up on her computer was – could it have been him in Stuttgart? Or her e-mail demanding that SHIELD figure out some way to get down here right now? Not to mention she was a breath away from falling to pieces.

As the station all-call sounded again, she eased her left hand slowly under her right arm toward the radio, the right hand still on the doorknob for fear if she moved it she might accidentally turn the knob and he would see. It was awkward doing it with her left hand, but she thumbed the radio to "off" easily enough.

When the radio call came a second later, she heard it through Lucas's radio on the other side of the door, and it made her jump and suck in a breath that she then held in fear, afraid he might have heard. But as the announcement continued the sound was clearly fading; he was walking away, to the left, toward the main corridor. She exhaled slowly, quietly, and waited another minute – counting slowly to sixty in her head – before letting go of the doorknob.

She went back over to her laptop, stepping over the chair. No response yet to her e-mail. She found herself getting angry at every single person she'd sent it to. Then she felt a flash of guilt, because Thor had specifically told her he didn't want SHIELD or the Avengers to know Loki was back on Earth, and she'd just told two Avengers and over a dozen SHIELD agents. Suddenly she thought of Selby; _maybe I should tell him_. She pressed her palms to her forehead, shook her head, breathed deeply. _Concentrate. Focus. Forget Selby; all he does is report back to them. Forget what Thor said. What's done is done. And if Thor knew Loki followed me here I'm pretty sure he'd want me to call in the cavalry._

Jane straightened her back and squared her shoulders. _You're tough, Foster. You can do this. He doesn't know. He thinks you still think he's Lucas Cane. So he _is_ Lucas Cane. If you see him, just stay calm. Don't freak out. Stay calm, don't freak out._ She repeated the words as a mantra as she put one foot in front of the other, placed her hand back on the doorknob, and turned it. She tried to act nonchalant, but as soon as she stepped out of her room her head darted from side to side in a decidedly nervous manner. _No Lucas. Loki. Lucas._

Jane bit down hard on her lip as she tried to get herself under control again; her hands were visibly shaking so she hid them away in the pockets of her jeans. _It's only Lucas. Stay calm, don't freak out._ _You walk down this hall every day. You see him every day. You've lived two doors down from him all this time._

Unfortunately that line of thought wasn't helping much.

She passed the bathrooms and opened the door to the main corridor to leave the berthing wing. She turned to the left, toward Comms, and there was Lucas, emerging from the galley, turning toward her.

"Jane, I was just looking for you," he said, quickly crossing the distance between them as Jane stood frozen in place.

"I was in the bathroom," she forced herself to say, similarly forcing herself to meet his eyes.

Loki hesitated, uncertain why she felt the need to share that particular detail. Her eyes were a little wide and she was breathing more heavily than normal; perhaps she was ill, or more overexerted from the MCI drill than he'd thought. "I wanted to offer my assistance with the circuit boards. I'm certain if you'll show me what to do I can help."

Jane's thoughts were racing as "um, yeah, okay," tumbled out. Circuit boards were the last thing on her mind right now. "Maybe…maybe later this afternoon? I, uh…I'm kind of tired from…from everything. From the drill. You're really heavy." She stopped then, realizing she was basically rambling, and wondering now if he was heavier than he looked because he wasn't _human_. Her gaze was drawn down to the opposite end of the long hall, past Loki, toward Comms.

Loki smirked at her. "I would have guessed I've _lost_ weight here given the rations available. And you managed quite well for someone of your size. But you're headed in the wrong direction if you're wanting to rest."

"Oh, well…" Jane licked her dry lips and tried to smile. Her hands clenched into fists in her pockets and she squeezed her arms to her sides. _It's just Lucas. He doesn't know._ But when she looked at him now all she could see was Loki, killing, threatening, taunting, taking over minds. Comms was so close. Loki was unfortunately much closer. "I just needed to talk to Rodrigo about something. About the drill," she finally managed to get out.

"Was there a problem?" Loki asked. "You really should have given me some oxygen before taking me out. I told you I wasn't breathing." He watched her carefully; she was clearly nervous about something. He wondered if she'd had a run-in with Selby, who had participated in the drill as part of the Hasty Team. He wondered what Selby might have told her, if so.

"You were right next to the fire, we had to get you out first. And we don't bring oxygen into a-" Jane stopped, blinking rapidly. _What are you doing? What _is_ this? Arguing with him like nothing has changed?_ Jane gulped. Of course, that was exactly what she _should_ be doing, she knew. But the moment was gone and he was Loki again. "It doesn't matter now. I just wanted to talk over the whole thing with Rodrigo, okay?"

"All right, then, how about 4:00?"

"Sure, yeah, that's fine," Jane said. _Whatever! Just go away and let me get to Comms._

"I'll walk with you. I'll go work in the Science Lab in the meantime."

Jane nodded, swallowing heavily, and they set off together. _How many times have we done this? This is no different, Jane,_ she told herself as they passed Club Med, the Computer Room, the divide between the two wings that could be dropped to the ground in case of a real fire emergency to prevent it from spreading, then finally the Science Lab.

"See you at four," he said at the door.

"Mm-hm, see you," Jane said with a smile full of false cheer and nerves. He went in, and she continued on, concentrating on keeping her pace steady as she passed the administration offices and finally reached Comms. Rodrigo and Zeke were there, along with winter site manager Olivia, all deep in conversation and looking closely at paper on a clipboard. It was strange, standing there watching them, when they hadn't yet realized she was there. They had no idea who they were harboring here. None of them did. Mari had no idea the person responsible for the destruction of her old office was living here, had even sat down to dinner with her before.

"Oh, hey, Jane, what's up?" Rodrigo asked when he finally noticed her.

She took a few more steps into the communications hub with its computers and radio microphones and speakers. "Nothing much, I just… I really need to make a phone call home. It's kind of important, but personal. Can I use one of the Iridiums?"

"Can't you do it over VOIP?"

Olivia shook her head. "Ice Cube team sent a bunch of stuff today, not enough bandwidth left."

"Oh, that's right. And we're about to lose the window anyway," Rodrigo said, glancing at the clock up on the wall. "Okay, hold on a sec." He handed the clipboard over to Olivia and grabbed one of the sat phones, then stepped away from the huge U-shaped desk over to Jane, and led her over closer to the door. "Is everything okay? Do you need anything?"

"No. I mean, yeah, everything's okay. But thanks," she said warmly. She knew if she _did_ need anything he would do his best to help out. And she felt bad for not telling him the truth. Didn't he deserve to know what she did? But if he knew, he would probably only panic, too, and it was safer for him at this point not to know.

"Okay, well, here you go. You remember how to use it?"

"Sure, it's easy."

"Yep. Okay. You can take it back to your room or one of the offices or something for privacy, but bring it right back, okay? We don't have that many, and we don't want them wandering off. Oh, and don't take it apart," he added with a smile and a mock warning look.

"Yes, sir," Jane said with a nod and small laugh despite everything.

She stepped out of the room feeling much calmer than she had since she'd realized who Lucas really was. Life was continuing as normal at the station. No one was worried about Lucas; no one was worried about Loki. So she wouldn't either, she decided. She clipped the sat phone over her belt at her right hip, then arranged the flannel shirt she had on over a white T-shirt so that the phone was hidden to the casual eye. She would go to her room, and walk confidently past the Science Lab as she did so.

But when she reached it, the door opened and Loki stepped out.

_Confident, relaxed, calm. He doesn't know._

"That was fast," he said, falling into step beside her as she continued down the corridor.

"Yeah, Rodrigo was busy. They're still in there going over the drill. I guess they have to get ready for tomorrow's debriefing." _See? Easy. Nothing to worry about. Just Lucas. Grad student. Assistant._

"And you still want to rest for a while before we get back to work?"

"Uh, yeah. You know, long day. Yeah, I'm kind of beat."

"Jane…" He reached out and put a hand lightly to her right elbow, stopping her. "Are you sure you're all right?"

She opened and closed her mouth once before she was able to get out a response. "Of course I'm all right. I told you, I'm just tired. You got to spend that drill lying down pretending not to breathe. I got to spend it lugging around 40 extra pounds of gear. So I'm just going to go back to my room and rest for a while, okay?" She started to turn but his hand on her elbow tightened.

"You know, Jane, there's something I realized about you earlier," Loki said, a gentle smile on his face.

"What's that?" she asked with a nervous smile.

"You're just as bad a liar as Thor."

/

* * *

/

Loki sat down at his designated desk in the Science Lab. He was far from alone in the room at the moment, but he felt it was best to do this here anyway, to remain closer to where Jane was, rather than go down to the Computer Room. As long as he kept an eye out for people walking by, no one should be able to see his computer screen.

He'd already checked Jane's e-mail early in the morning – he usually did it before she got up – but her behavior was odd, and he thought it prudent to check her outgoing mail in case she'd given someone an indication of what was going on.

He opened up the e-mail account that served as a clearing house for her mail. His breath froze mid-exhale.

"_Loki here at South Pole – not a joke"_

He clenched his jaw and remembered to breathe. He opened the e-mail. No more than rambling pleas to contact Thor, to send help, and to be taken seriously. The immediate problem was easily solved. He clicked on "Reject message" and watched it disappear to the Trash folder.

He exited out of his e-mail and logged out of the computer. On to the larger problem. _She knows._ He had no idea how she knew, but that hardly mattered now. _She knows, and everything has changed. I was so close. I _am_ so close._ He stared blankly ahead and tried to imagine how he could spin this, what kind of story he could tell her to convince her to continue helping him. To keep his secret instead of blabbing it to half of SHIELD plus Tony Stark and Bruce Banner and his mindless beast.

Loki's face suddenly transformed into an expression of cold anger fueled by an icy strand of fear. His eyes narrowed almost to slits and slid to the right toward the door, his lips pressed tightly together. Jane had been heading for Comms. Where the satellite phones were kept. The satellite phones that would put her in touch with anyone she wanted, and he would have no control or even influence over it. No matter what else happened, he couldn't allow _that_ to happen. He would have to put a stop to it. _Now._

/

* * *

/

After several more long minutes of searching through the rubble of the throne room, Fandral and two of the guards were found unconscious and taken out to the healers. Another guard had been crushed under debris; for him it was too late for the healers. It was becoming clear that the worst damage was to the left of the throne, and around a hundred men dug through the debris in the colossal room, tossing aside metal and stone. Hundreds more scoured the palace for signs of damage or enemies or anything at all out of the ordinary. Odin and Frigga were safe and accounted for; Frigga waited in their chambers far from the throne room with several guards, ready to leave the building if it were deemed unsafe, while Odin defied Hergils's wishes and joined the search effort.

"Over here! I found someone!" came a shout some thirty feet away to Thor's left. Thor set aside a distorted gold panel, its engravings barely recognizable, and went as fast as he could toward the voice. At the same time, he heard two notes from a ram's horn, somewhere to the west of the palace.

"Someone's a little late to react," he grumbled. His vision was swimming a bit now and he had to admit to himself that the head wound was weakening him, but as long as he could stand on his own two feet and help clear the debris he was staying.

He joined the small group that had converged and began lifting marble and obsidian and gold – only a hand was visible beneath the rubble.

Another ram's horn sounded, one note this time, shortly followed by two notes, this time more to the northwest. Thor shook his head but didn't bother commenting again. Discipline was failing. He could picture the men outside, realizing one by one that the palace itself had been attacked, and, not expecting this kind of underhanded assault, panicking and sounding an alarm for an attack outside their own sector.

A third ram's horn sounded, and a fourth. Someone next to him cursed under his breath and muttered something about children being entrusted with those horns.

"Jolgeir!" someone exclaimed.

Thor's breath caught in his throat. Soon the Chief Palace Einherjar was free of debris, and it was clear he was in terrible condition, his body broken and bloody, his left arm in particular badly misshapen. Thor stared down at him in disbelief, this man who'd watched over him and Loki when they were boys, who followed them everywhere they went and picked up dropped toys and discarded shoes as though he were a nursemaid instead of an elite guard charged with protecting the lives of the two young princes, who most likely followed them even on their apparently not-so-secret adventures to Svartalfheim and elsewhere, who'd made a young Thor nervous with his ability to blend into the shadows but impressed Loki, and later taught them some of his stealth skills, Loki with far more success than Thor. Jolgeir had saved their lives, perhaps more times than they knew.

This brave, honorable man could not die like this. His sword was still in its scabbard.

"He's breathing," the Einherjar hovering beside Jolgeir's bloody face with its broken nose said, as yet another ram's horn was blown. Two of them hoisted him carefully up to get him outside.

"Jolgeir," Thor said. "Can you tell us what happened here?" He easily matched the slow pace of the two Einherjar picking through the rubble to get him to the healers.

"Don't know," he said over shallow, shaky breaths. "Fast. Happened fast. Don't remember. Tell Driffa…"

"Prince Thor, you must come!"

"What is it!" he bellowed, furious at whomever had so callously interrupted Jolgeir's words for his wife. When he met the man's eyes, though, a warrior only vaguely known to him, and saw the emotional intensity in his expression, he spared a glance in Jolgeir's direction as his brethren carried him out and then gave the warrior before him, already speaking, his full attention.

"Portals! Portals everywhere! We're under attack and our battalions are scattered, many of them have left their positions for the palace. We need you with us!"

Thor froze in place for a moment. Each of those horns…each one a separate attack? Not a break in discipline of the warning system…but a break in discipline of the warriors themselves, drawn to the attack on the palace instead of holding their positions. How many ram's horns had sounded now – five ? Six? Seven? Thor had stopped counting. Another one sounded then, two notes, and Thor was instantly pulled from his shocked silence.

"Stay here and find my father. Tell him what you've told me." Thor spun Mjolnir, aware that he was stirring up dust that had begun to settle, but he was deep into the throne room and this was by far the fastest way out.

When he cleared the porticos he found he had no place even to set his feet down on the black steps. Crowds were gathered there, writhing masses coming and going from the throne room, milling about, seeking information, waiting to attend to any wounded that were brought out. The hundreds would soon swell to the thousands as more continued toward the palace, warriors on foot and on horseback, seeking to smite the enemy that had dared strike at the heart of Asgard. Hovering high above them, Thor could see what they could not.

Half a dozen portals in the distance, some low in the sky, some at ground level, and surely others that were not in his line of sight. Framed in gleaming silver, shimmering and distorting the air around them with crackling energy. Pouring out warriors, few of whom had yet met any resistance as they ran, rode, and flew into Asgard.

* * *

/

_So, first off, thannnnnk you for all the reviews for the last chapter, wow! It was a long time coming and believe me, I was at least as anxious for it as you._

_Teasers for the next chapter, 35, "Battle": Loki does what he does best (manipulate everything to his benefit) and Thor does what he does best (swing Mjolnir), while Jane tries to come to terms with her new reality, and does a little of what she does best (science stuff).  
_

_And excerpt:_

Suddenly she had a terrifying sensation of falling, and hands on her shoulders jerking her upright before she could hit the ground. She blinked rapidly, gasped out a few shaky breaths, and turned to see the owner of the hands – Lucas. Several seconds passed before she steadied enough that he let go of her and full comprehension returned. She'd fallen asleep sitting up and nearly fallen into the table. And the man who stopped her from doing so was not "Lucas," but Loki.

She reached for the illuminated magnifying glass – she couldn't remember exactly where she'd left off on the circuit board – but Loki got to it first and moved it to his side of the worktable.

"Jane, you should have told me you were this tired."

"I'm not tired. I can keep working."

"You sound like a child," he said, and the sad thing was, he was right, and she knew it. "Go on back to the station. I think I can finish these. We'll test first thing in the morning, before house mouse."


	36. (35) Battle

"You're just as bad a liar as Thor." _Short version of the story I told those of you who happened to mention this line in your review - I've never put as much time and effort into a single line of fiction as I did for that particular line. It had to meet a rather long list of criteria for me. I'm glad to hear so many of you liked it!_

_Please note, this chapter contains a metaphorical or psychological battle along with actual battle, and this story is rated "T."_

_And now onward!_

/

* * *

**Beneath**

**Chapter Thirty-Five – Battle**

Jane's smile was still plastered on her face as her mind went into overdrive. Some strange part of her continued to insist that this couldn't possibly be real. _Lucas_ couldn't possibly have just mentioned Thor. Because he didn't know Thor. He was an astrophysics grad student from Canada. But the part of her that couldn't deny reality was staring up into Loki's eyes and they were more frightening that Lucas's had ever seemed at the worst of his temper flare-ups. The world around her seemed to be spinning in a tight tornado and some _very_ strange detached part of her hoped it would carry her right out of this corridor and away from the man standing far too close to her and the grip on her elbow that was becoming painful, causing her to wince.

Loki's eyes narrowed. _His_ right elbow was beginning to hurt. He remembered what had happened at the hockey game in Melfort and instantly let go of her. He hadn't meant to hurt her in the first place, only to get her attention. He kept his hand at her side though, and pushed back her flannel shirt. "Who were you planning to call, Jane?"

"Oh, this?" Jane asked, glancing down at the sat phone on her belt. She shrugged her shoulders, shook her head minutely. "No one. Actually, I had it from the MCI drill. I guess I forgot to return it."

"Why don't we go do that right now, then?" Loki asked, as casually and politely as though he were asking if she'd like to go have lunch.

"I…I think I'd rather go take a nap first."

"Dear Jane, if Thor hasn't gotten any better at this in over a thousand years, how much do you really think you're going to improve over the course of a few minutes?"

Patronizing though he may be, he was right. She could continue to pretend, but she wasn't fooling anyone. Not even herself. It was time to face up to this. To face up to _him._ She'd sent the e-mail, the cavalry would come. But probably not in the next ten minutes. "What do you intend to do with me?" she asked, the first thing that came to mind. It was a terrible cliché, she realized, once the words were out, but it was also the thing she most wanted to know right now. And she'd managed to put a bit of steel into the words, which in turn gave her a small boost in confidence.

Loki smiled. _Now we're getting somewhere._ "I intend to escort you to Comms so you can return the telephone, then to someplace we can talk." He let his hand fall back to his side. The Science Lab door was opening behind him.

"Jane, Lucas," Carlo said with a nod.

Jane smiled and nodded back as Carlo went past them, in the direction of the galley, and Lucas – Loki – did the same. Jane stared at Carlo's back and thought she might have just experienced the most surreal- yet-seemingly-insignificant moment of her life.

"Talk," she repeated when she faced Loki again.

"Yes. Were you expecting something else?"

Jane opened her mouth, but nothing came out, because, well, _yes_.

"Jane, if my purpose was to harm you or anyone else here, I've had two months in which I could have done so many times over. Have I ever done anything to hurt you?" Loki asked in his most reasonable tone, his expression firm but open. Trustworthy.

Jane glanced down at her right elbow, where she could swear she still felt the imprint of his fingers.

"I apologize for that," he said with a look of deep regret that was at least partially sincere; his own elbow still twinged from it and he'd barely touched her. "I assure you it was entirely unintentional. I sometimes forget how fragile you mortals are."

_Right_, Jane thought sarcastically, but didn't dare say.

"So, shall we?"

Jane took a deep breath and nodded. It wasn't like she really had a choice. Besides, all she had to do was survive – keep calm, keep _him _calm – and wait for help to arrive. Preferably in the form of a certain well-armored hammer-wielding acting king.

They walked side-by-side the few feet back to Comms. Loki opened the door for her and followed her in.

This time Rodrigo noticed her immediately. "Done already? Hey, Lucas," he added.

"Yeah, it was a quick call," Jane answered, walking up to the desk as she unclipped the phone. Loki stayed by her side and exchanged polite minimalist greetings with the others.

"Everything okay?"

"Sure, yeah. It's fine now. Thanks," she said in a bit of a rush. She hoped she was doing a better job with Rodrigo – and Zeke and Olivia – than she'd done with Loki, though. She figured she was only putting them in danger if she gave any indication of a problem. Maybe Loki hadn't attacked anyone precisely because he hadn't been provoked. _So_, Jane told herself, _don't provoke him_.

"To your chambers?" he asked as they returned to the corridor and began walking toward the other end.

"I don't think so," Jane said with a nervous, wry laugh. _Chambers? Thor used that word…has he said other things like that, this whole time, and I never noticed?_

"Where, then? I ask only that we have privacy."

"The galley."

"That's not very private," Loki said in a chiding voice, drawing to a halt. They stood in the divide between the A and B wings.

"We're in between lunch and supper. It should be private enough." Jane set her expression to show her determination, staring unflinchingly up into the eyes that were the last thing Erik saw before being enslaved. Either she was getting braver or she was getting stupider. If he refused to go to the galley, there wasn't a thing in the world she could do about it.

"I understand your…concerns," Loki finally said. "The galley it is. As long as we're able to talk without being overheard." His own first choice would be one of the unoccupied jamesways outside, but at this point, if he was to regain control of Jane, he needed to create the illusion that _she_ was the one in control.

Jane nodded, almost surprised, and they continued on toward the galley, past the same old rooms, the same exposed ductwork in the ceiling, the same brightly colored square tiles on the wall. It had begun to feel like home, but now it felt almost like she was being led to her death.

They took a seat at one of the round four-seater tables – they were alone except for the kitchen staff preparing dinner.

"Oh, my apologies. Can I get you something? Double espresso?" he asked, standing again.

Jane looked up at him with the closest thing to disdain she could manage. There was something incredibly disturbing about Loki knowing her favorite drink. A chill raced up her spine. _What else does he know? I told him about my family, my friends, my work-_

"I merely thought it might help set you at ease. But I suppose espresso might not be best suited to that task."

"What are you doing here? Knowing _that_ might help 'set me at ease.'" _Hardly. But knowledge is power,_ Jane thought, an absurd – given the circumstances – flashback of some cartoon she'd watched as a kid coming to mind.

Loki nodded once and sat down across from her. "Very well. What did my brother tell you about how _he_ was sent to Earth?" _Did he tell you I'm not really his brother?_

Jane started to answer, then reconsidered. "I asked you a question. I'd like an answer back, not another question."

Loki tightened his jaw and struggled to keep his polite smile in place. Somewhere was a line between letting Jane _think_ she was in control and letting her actually _take_ control. They were close to it. "Fine. But you do know he was banished here, correct? Sent here as punishment?"

Jane hesitated, but then nodded curtly.

"Well, so was I. _He _was expected to accomplish a task in order to be accepted back on Asgard, and so am I."

"_He_ gave his life to protect me and everyone else in Puente Antiguo. Were you planning on doing that anytime soon? Oh, wait. Probably not, because it was _you_ he was protecting us from in the first place." Jane literally clamped down on her tongue with her teeth to prevent herself from continuing. She'd grown comfortable arguing with Lucas, and despite the very real fear she still felt, it was shockingly easy to slip back into that mode. But this was very much _not_ some eccentric grad student. _Don't antagonize him, Jane_, she reminded herself. His smile had grown, and somehow she suspected that wasn't a good thing.

"You wish to talk about _that_, do you? We should then. If I understood you correctly, you just said that it was _I_ who made possible the return of Thor's powers and his home."

Jane narrowed her eyes at him. His logic was so twisted it took a moment to penetrate. "Please don't try to tell me that was your intent all along."

"I wouldn't dream of so insulting your intelligence. My intent was to stop Thor's friends from defying our father's commands. No one else was ever meant to get hurt. Still…ironic, isn't it?"

"_Thor_ got hurt."

"Really? He looked rather well the last time I saw him."

_Don't antagonize him, don't antagonize him…_ Jane wanted to slap him. "You still haven't told me why you're here. What this 'task' is that you have to accomplish."

"Jane, think about it. You're a clever woman. You already know. Thor is a man of strength. He had to lay down his strength to reclaim his home."

Jane kept her mouth tightly shut. She had a few ideas of what he was a "man of," and all of them were likely to go against the "don't antagonize him" rule.

"I am a man of magic. I must lay it down and find my own way home with Midgardian science."

Understanding flashed through Jane. In her panic she'd forgotten everything about Lucas. She'd forgotten what they were working on, how badly he wanted to see it come to fruition. Lucas was like a separate person to her, a person who had never actually existed, who had in fact winked out of existence the moment she realized who he really was. She realized now, however, that he was more like a character Loki had been playing. A character through which he could achieve his goal. _To get back to Asgard?_

A healthy dose of skepticism then flashed through her as well. "So your…'task,' as you put it, is to use our technology instead of your own to return to Asgard?" _Thor never mentioned anything like that._

"Essentially, yes. But I can see you doubt me. Go ahead, ask your questions." _I am an open book, Jane. But I cannot speak to the veracity of what lies on my pages._

"I understand what Thor learned on Earth. Humility. And…and…and selflessness. If this is some grand task you have to accomplish, what are you supposed to learn from it? How does using Pathfinder to get to Asgard make you a better person?" _And besides, Thor not saying "please" and "thank you" and breaking the occasional coffee mug is not quite the same as you murdering a thousand or so people and trying to take over my planet. How dare you even compare yourself?_

"Working with mortals teaches me to value your realm. To value your people's efforts and ingenuity. I sought you out, Jane. I knew that you were very talented. And…and kind. I knew you would be able to help me, just as you helped my brother." Loki leaned forward, his eyes full of every bit of sincerity he could draw up into them. He wanted to vomit.

Jane sat back in her chair, maintaining the distance between herself and Loki, mind reeling. She had helped Thor by getting him some clothes to wear and feeding him. She understood now that she'd also been a kind of anchor for him in a time when he was cut adrift. But she wasn't some miracle-worker; she hadn't said any magic words or done anything so special to change him. Even her own initial interest in him had been basically selfish – he'd been the best piece of evidence she'd ever had for the existence of Einstein-Rosen Bridges. Whatever Thor did had come from inside himself. She wasn't sure what Loki needed, but she was pretty sure it involved prison bars and she was pretty sure it did not involve _her_. And she was pretty sure Thor would agree with at least the latter.

"So…you're here to find a technological means to reach Asgard," she finally said. Because right or not, she _was_ involved, at least for the moment.

"Yes."

"And if we can ensure that Pathfinder works, and that it's safe…"

"I'll be its first living test subject."

"You'll leave."

"Yes."

"No plans to…to try to take over the world?" Jane asked, forcing a smile. But the question raised the fear back up a few notches. It was so easy to forget the reality of who he was, sitting here with him in the galley as she had a hundred times or more.

"If that were my goal, I think I would have identified a more likely power center than the United States Antarctic Program Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. Of course, I suppose I could conquer this base, then move on to Russia's Vostok Station, the French-Italian Concordia Station, and keep going from there. But I can't say I find the idea very enticing." _And _that_ is an understatement._

Jane shook her head. "Are you actually joking about this? Because it's not funny. People _died_, Luc- Loki." She took a quick breath. It was the first time she'd addressed him by his real name.

"I'm simply trying to assure you in whatever way I can that my intentions are entirely innocent. You are not in any danger, nor is anyone else here. I remind you – we first met in Australia on February 5th, and it is now March 31st. And in that whole time I've wanted only one thing: to learn from you and find a way to return home through your technology. And that is all I have ever done. There's no reason for that to change, now that you know the truth." The words were smooth as warmed honey. He hadn't earned the nickname "Silvertongue" for nothing.

Jane, however, was not easily swayed by mere words, no matter how smooth and seemingly logical. "So why lie? If your purpose here is so innocent, why did you lie to me from the very beginning? Tell me your name was Lucas Cane? Tell me you were a graduate student from Toronto? Set yourself up as my assistant?" _And how _did_ you do all that?_ she wondered, sending her head spinning again. _I got an e-mail from SHIELD telling me about you…_ But there was no time to think it through.

"If I'd told you the truth, would you have agreed to work with me? I suspect not."

_You suspect correctly._

"And that brings me to one point of unpleasantness. I must insist that you tell no one outside this place that I'm here. I swear to you, Jane – and I do not swear lightly – I have no desire to do harm to you. But if I am attacked, I will defend myself." He paused and leaned forward; she needed to be very clear on this point. "Vigorously," he added, with extra attention to enunciation. "It would not go well for the station's residents."

Jane felt her mouth go dry and tried to swallow. "That sounds a lot like a threat."

"I don't threaten. I merely state facts. If you don't want a repeat of what happened to New York, you'll tell no one that I'm here."

Jane's anger spiked in response to that. _As if "what happened to New York" was anyone's fault other than yours. And it's too late for your "I-don't-threaten-I-merely-state-facts." Help is already on the way._ She fidgeted a bit in her chair. Help that would break out high-tech weaponry to capture Loki. Or, if only Thor could make it here due to the temperatures, help with a lightning- and tornado-producing hammer. _And then there's whatever Loki would use to defend himself "vigorously" with – magic?_ He didn't have his glowing magic wand anymore and she wasn't sure what he could do without it. SHIELD might have that information, but she didn't.

"What troubles you, Jane? It's not complicated. Keep my secret and I will leave this place peacefully as soon as I'm able. Fail to keep my secret, and you will bring war to the one continent on your planet that has never known it."

Her hands started to shake, and she was grateful they were hidden under the table. An image of her slightly rambling e-mail on the pages of a history text chronicling how the first and only war in Antarctica began flickered in her mind. But she couldn't tell him. She couldn't know how he would react. She could only hope that Thor knew how to subdue his brother without destroying the station or its residents.

"Oh, I see. You're concerned about that e-mail you sent. Don't be. Its intended recipients will never see it."

Jane's eyes went wide and her stomach dropped. _How could he possibly know about that? Does he read minds? Does he make himself invisible and follow me around?_ She shivered. That was a terrifying thought. Either of them, actually. _Are you reading my mind right now?_ And then it occurred to her to deny it. Maybe he was just bluffing. But she knew that was a lost cause. Her reaction had already confirmed it was true. "How did you know?" she finally asked. And then something else occurred to her: that meant the cavalry was not coming. _Thor_ was not coming.

"I understand your curiosity. I even admire it. But I'm not here to satisfy it. I'm sorry, Jane," Loki said, deliberately softening his voice, and finding it came very naturally. He _did_ regret what had happened, though his reasons were complicated. "I know this is a shock, and a lot to take in. And yet look at us. Sitting here, talking, as we always have. I have the same request I've always had, to return to work on a new transmitter for Pathfinder. To concentrate our efforts on making this technology work. As long as we continue to behave normally, as long as no one knows I'm here, I promise, I'll be gone as soon as possible, perhaps even by the end of the week. I'll go back to Asgard. Where I belong," he added, though those final words may as well have been a mouthful of glass. She hadn't yet made a choice, and he would keep repeating her options until she had done so. Until he had made it clear that there was in fact only one good option.

And yet still she did not respond. He took a breath and continued. "I know that Thor spoke to you when you were still in Norway. He warned you, did he not? But he also communicated the wishes of Odin All-Father, I believe. That I should not be hunted. That I should be allowed to complete my task unhindered."

Jane looked away. She didn't recall anything about any task. She _did_ recall him saying Loki had threatened to come find her. But he wasn't threatening now, not really. Although if she refused to help him, she suspected threats would follow; she wasn't that naive. He was trying to get to Asgard. She wasn't sure yet if he was really supposed to go back there or not…but _there_ – where Thor was and Odin and whoever else who were equipped to deal with Loki – was infinitely better than _here_ – where fifty unarmed scientists and mechanics and cooks and electricians were certainly not. Fifty people who would be caught in the crossfire if someone managed to make it here to try to stop Loki.

"All right," she said at last, reluctance and self-doubt still in her voice.

"And no more e-mails about me. No phone calls period. You're too dreadful a liar."

"I take that as a compliment. And fine, agreed."

"Good," Loki said, sitting back and letting his posture relax. He had won this battle, and won it the way he knew best. "Shall we get back to work, then?"

Jane hesitated only a moment longer, then nodded.

/

* * *

/

"Back to your positions! Back to your positions!" Thor shouted. "The horns each signal a separate attack. Only those assigned to defend the palace should stay. Everyone else, the battle isn't here. Defend your sectors! Guards, secure the palace!"

There was a moment of confusion, then a shout, then more shouts, then the air felt physically abuzz with the voices of thousands of Asgardian warriors pushing and shoving and eventually settling into streams flowing back to the locations they never should have left in the first place. Thor, still aloft with Mjolnir, flew to the closest portal. A battalion at some 10% strength was steadily losing ground to Dark Elven cavalry. The shimmering silver doorway, just a few feet above ground in a long narrow garden less than a mile from the palace, continued to disgorge horse and rider. The Dark Elves, in their thick black leather helmets and black and tan garb, brandished long curved swords that gave them great reach as they swung them in broad sweeping motions from atop their steeds. They appeared to be too big and heavy, in fact, to be used with such balance and control in just one hand, but the Svartalf wielded them with graceful and deadly ease.

Thor quickly considered then rejected several tactics – tremors through the earth could bring down nearby buildings and would be difficult for his own overwhelmed warriors to escape, and throwing Mjolnir at the cavalry emerging from the portal carried unknown risks for the hammer's return to him – before illuminating the ever-darkening sky and directing a cascade of lightning toward it. The silver frame of the portal attracted the bolts of electricity; it glowed orange like flame and began to lose its structural integrity, seen in tiny but brilliant flickers of light snapping violently across its surface. Horses reared as they crossed the unstable threshold, and several threw their riders, some to Asgardian ground, some back through the portal, presumably to Svartalfheim.

As the lightning attack continued the portal shrank and convulsed, while at the same time reinforcements began arriving to augment the dwindling ranks of Asgardian warriors. An ear-splitting whistle sounded and Svartalfheim's warriors disengaged, drew in their reins, and rode for the portal, their horses leaping easily into the air and disappearing. The Asgardians fought them as they retreated, but their ranks were disorganized and still under-strength. Without orders to do so none attempted to follow the Dark Elves. This bit of remaining discipline proved wise, for one Svartalf who'd been thrown by his horse attempted to follow his fellow warriors through just as the portal was shut down; his raised outstretched hand made it through but nothing else. He fell to the ground shrieking in horror, his voice soon lost amongst the others.

Prisoners were hastily rounded up, perhaps seven or eight of them, Thor counted; as they were brought together he realized there were many more; as he widened his view to try to estimate the Asgardian fallen he found the numbers of everyone on the ground to have increased far beyond his expectation.

"Prince Thor! Come down! You require treatment!"

Thor looked down, searching for the owner of the voice…then found there were two owners, both of them very young men, probably barely of age, in identical armor and light-blue capes marking them as healers. Thor wasn't so far gone that he didn't realize now that he was experiencing double vision, but _was_ too far gone to force the two healers into one body or even determine which was really him, despite the considerable will power he invested in the task.

He came down in a planting bed so trampled it was impossible to tell what had grown there just an hour or two earlier. He should have easily come to rest on one knee, but instead he immediately lost his balance and pitched forward into the soil. He felt hands under his arms, pulling him up, and he sputtered out dirt from his mouth and nose.

"Hold still," came the voice of the young healer.

Fingers probed at his head, soon hitting a spot that made him hiss and jerk his upper body hard enough to break free of the healer and the two others holding him up. It was only then, when he began to pitch forward again, that he realized they _had_ been holding him up. "Do what you must, but quickly. I have to get to the next portal." He wasn't certain, but he thought his words sounded slightly slurred. He managed to keep himself still this time as the healer determined the extent of the injury to the back of his head.

"It's a large gash, my prince. And I…I'm new at this, but I'm certain you have a concussion. I'll just use a healing stone for now – it will help, but go to the Healing Room for further treatment as soon as-"

"Yes, yes, get on with it. Don't explain it, just do it. Now!" he barked.

The young healer looked frightened – though there were still two of him so it was hard to be sure – but Thor had little chance to regret his tone, because in the next instant a gray stone was being crumbled over his head, and he detested the tingling feel of it, even worse on his head where the itching was awful. He'd hated it all his life, from the first time a stone was used on his head when he was a young child and had fallen from a chair trying to reach a plate of sweet rolls and had been taken to the Healing Room and his father had gone with him and Eir had healed him and his mother had come and… Suddenly his thoughts cleared and he had no idea why he'd been thinking about sweet rolls at a time like this. Flesh had knit back together, blood loss stopped, injury repaired. And his head _itched_ terribly. He looked at the healer – healer, singular – and nodded his thanks at the same time as the men supporting him released their grip.

He took to the air again, searching for the next closest portal. "Maintain your positions! Only respond to a ram's horn if it's within your sector!" he called to the men below him. And then he realized he had no idea if any more horns had sounded during that battle. He'd given every last ounce of fading strength he had in drawing down lightning on the first portal, so although he hadn't heard any horns, he wasn't at all sure he would have noticed them.

Settling on his next target, Thor found himself amidst startled archers from Alfheim nimbly perched on a series of elevated walkways and taking expert aim into the melee below, Ljosalf and Aesir clashing primarily with swords. He took out the closest with a powerful swing of Mjolnir, then, careful of the location of the portal, he tossed it down a line of archers so straight and compact it appeared they'd positioned themselves precisely for this moment. Several fell, but the Light Elves were quick and agile, and did not do him the favor of remaining in their convenient line. They sprinted to new positions and took aim at him; he called Mjolnir back and rushed the closest archer, slamming his fist into the man's head and knocking him unconscious. If any arrows struck Thor they did not penetrate his armor, but at least six of the jagged gleaming arrows pierced the leather-clad back of the man he still held in front of him.

Mjolnir back in his hand he dropped the unfortunate archer and began working his way through the rest of them, moving quickly though not always as quickly as the elves. They continued to try to take aim at him but they continued to fail, and Thor rejoiced in every bow gone taut with an arrow to be released toward him instead of onto the battalion below. He was soon joined by several of the Aesir winged cavalry, and it was not long before there was no more threat from the archers.

As soon as he made a visual sweep of his surroundings and could find not one archer on his feet, he turned his attention to the portal, preparing to direct lightning at it this one, too, opened up right above one of Asgard's main streets. Before he could do so he realized someone was calling his name. He looked down from the overpass he stood on and saw Volstagg below, his big hands cupped over his mouth and shouting up at him. The mere sight of him made Thor smile.

"We have this one under control!" he shouted. "Go to that nature park near the source of the Vina. The Fire Giants brought women!"

Thor stared down, trying to make sense out of both Volstagg's words and his actions. The latter proved easier, as Volstagg suddenly stepped to the side and swung his double-bladed battle ax, felling a Light Elf who'd been swinging his sword toward a distracted Aesir. Thor quickly realized there were two distracted Aesir – who did not look alike, he was quick to make sure – both staring hard at the portal. Magic wielders, then. They could handle the portal, especially now that there were no arrows raining down on them and they could focus. It was already showing signs of instability.

With a whirl of Mjolnir Thor took flight and raced toward the park Volstagg had spoken of; he knew it well. As he sped across and beyond the city the four or five miles to the source of the Vina River, he looked down and saw nearly a dozen separate battles raging. He tried not to let his thoughts be sidetracked by them – he could not fight them all at once. Asgard's warriors were fierce and courageous, and their discipline was returning along with their fellows who'd left for the palace.

His eye caught on something that shouldn't be there, something extending down from him – a Ljosalf arrow, he realized. He'd never even felt it. It was lodged in his left leg, just above the knee, and now that he was aware of it, it was beginning to ache. The injury was minor, though; the arrow had not gone deep and there was little blood. He set down on a broad thick tree limb overlooking the battle Volstagg had directed him to, hung Mjolnir at his hip, gripped the arrow shaft with his left hand, and snapped it off with his right. It hurt, but it was easily bearable. And now it wouldn't get in his way.

Thor didn't see any women, only Aesir warriors in leather and metal and Fire Giants of Muspelheim in their silver metal helmets and thick blackened leather that served as armor. The Fire Giants were nearly as tall as the Ice Giants, with skin a red so deep that in the darkness of night it looked almost black. In their own realm they were surprisingly swift for their size, but here they seemed to be more sluggish, perhaps because of the cool night air. As Thor quickly assessed the battle, he realized that some of the Aesir were even more sluggish, hesitating to strike and being struck down themselves instead. _What is this cowardice?_ he thought, before swooping down to ask just that of a particularly tall Aesir warrior who'd just pulled a punch and barely avoided a sword to the gut.

He threw the man back and lifted Mjolnir toward the Fire Giant raising his sword, then froze himself. The Fire Giant's long dark shiny hair flowed out from underneath his helmet…_her_ helmet. She was bringing her sword around again.

In the space of a single heartbeat Thor pictured what Sif would have done to him if he'd said that he didn't need _her_, or worse yet _a woman_, to accompany him. In the next heartbeat he remembered the way Sif had looked just moments after, the last time he'd seen her: silent and still, not even a wiggle from a fingertip.

He swung Mjolnir around and knocked the sword from the female Fire Giant's hands, then brought it around again but in an upward arc and struck under her chin with all his might; she crumpled to the ground and did not get up, as silent and still as Sif.

He met the eyes of the warrior he'd knocked to the ground in anger, now back on his feet; the man nodded, and Thor was certain he'd have no more qualms about striking a female Fire Giant. He spun Mjolnir and let it lift him up again. His voice boomed out over the men – and women – below. "If they stand before you as warriors, man or woman, strike them down! The only dishonor is in not defending our realm!" Women on Asgard were not treated as weaklings – no Aesir was – but neither were they expected to appear wielding a sword on the battlefield. Women were to be treated gently, respectfully, not because they would break, but because it was the honorable, right thing to do. If _these_ women were treated gently, they would decimate the Asgardian battalion. Thor hoped his words had been heard and taken to heart, but he couldn't simply watch the battle and shout. He had to join it.

Fire Giants were still pouring from the portal opened just on the near bank of the Vina; he could identify no effort to close it through magic. He continued to spin the hammer but lifted it high and summoned lightning again. Even as he directed it toward the portal, he had a new idea. Thunder boomed overhead, making him grin; he'd always loved the thunder, even as a child when his brother had been afraid of it, years before he'd been given Mjolnir, even longer before he'd learned to use it to cause thunder. Then the rain began. The Aesir wouldn't be bothered by it; they'd trained in rain and mud. But in the chill of the night air it was a cold rain, and the Fire Giants trembled and slowed further. Thor watched as the tide turned, with the giants' strength and skills plummeting and fewer Aesir hesitating to fight the women.

Half an hour later the portal was gone and the nature park was silent and dark and wet, its grounds littered with the fallen.

Thor sought the battalion commander for word on where he was most needed next.

/

* * *

/

Even as they settled into work in the machinist's shop in MAPO, Jane could not relax. She was acutely aware of who sat next to her at the worktable, to her right, closely watching everything she did. Gary was there, too, busy with his own work, so there was no talk of anything other than the circuit boards before them. She couldn't help shrinking away from Loki when he picked up the soldering gun. He'd merely raised an eyebrow at her before focusing his attention on the task at hand, performing it exactly as she had, and just as well.

Dinnertime came and Gary eventually left, but still nothing was said between them. Jane was hungry; she'd skipped lunch and hadn't had anything but water since breakfast. But she was afraid to speak up. And she wanted to finish. She wanted him _gone._

She was tired, though, too, and it was sinking into her bones fast. The MCI drill really had drained her, and the lack of food meant there'd been nothing to replenish her energy. The circuit board she was working on was starting to blur before her eyes, and this was delicate work which blurriness would make impossible. She closed her eyes to rest them for a moment.

Suddenly she had a terrifying sensation of falling, and hands on her shoulders jerking her upright before she could hit the ground. She blinked rapidly, gasped out a few shaky breaths, and turned to see the owner of the hands – Lucas. Several seconds passed before she steadied enough that he let go of her and full comprehension returned. She'd fallen asleep sitting up and nearly fallen into the table. And the man who stopped her from doing so was not "Lucas," but Loki.

She reached for the illuminated magnifying glass – she couldn't remember exactly where she'd left off on the circuit board – but Loki got to it first and moved it to his side of the worktable.

"Jane, you should have told me you were this tired."

"I'm not tired. I can keep working."

"You sound like a child," he said, and the sad thing was, he was right, and she knew it. "Go on back to the station. I think I can finish these. We'll test first thing in the morning, before house mouse."

"House mouse…you…no wonder you hate it so much." There was something else she wanted to say, something else she wanted to _think_, but her brief moment of hyper-alertness was gone and she felt so tired it was little different from being drunk.

Loki gave a small smile – or maybe it was a frown, Jane wasn't entirely sure. She took a deep breath and pushed herself up from the table.

"No e-mails about me, and no phone calls," he said. There was no anger in his voice, but even in her exhaustion she heard the undercurrent of _or else._

"I understand," she said quietly, her eyes flickering up to meet his just once, just so he would hopefully see that she was telling the truth. He nodded, and she quickly left the room.

Jane stood outside bundled in the warm familiarity of Big Red. She drew in a slow, deep breath of bracingly cold air through her balaclava and stared down the path of red flags leading toward the elevated station. Loki wanted to pretend that nothing had changed. _Everything_ had changed. The growing darkness had been a welcome break from unrelenting sunshine; now it seemed foreboding. The harsh environment had seemed like an adventure; now it seemed like a prison. No one was coming to free her.

She set off for the station; the fifteen-minute walk seemed to last an hour. Dinner service was over, and she didn't feel like going to the galley anyway, so she went straight to her room and stripped down to her long johns. From a desk drawer she fished out two granola bars and forced herself to eat them, then chased it down with as much water as she could manage. Then she climbed up into bed and slid beneath the covers.

She lay there, thinking about Loki, afraid she wouldn't be able to stop thinking about him and he'd keep her from sleep, but within minutes that concern was proved unfounded. Her last lucid thought was of the date. Loki had mentioned it – March 31st. It really should have been one day later.

_April Fool's Day._

* * *

/

_As always, thank you for reading, thank you for reviewing!_

_Here are a few previews from the next chapter, 36, currently titled "Fear": Jane vacillates between fear and the urge to confront Loki (which really might not be the brightest idea she's ever had), and she realizes for the first time that there's more to him than just a card-carrying tyrannical Bad Guy; Loki works hard to present the image of himself he needs Jane to see so that she'll help him and keep his secret (and how long will he be able to keep that up?); battles continue on Asgard._

_And the excerpt (Jane and Loki):_

"What have you learned?"

His lips thinned and his expression turned hard. _How to manipulate you into doing exactly what I want you to do without even the tiniest wisp of magic. Father will be so pleased._

"I'm serious. If we find out the probe made it to Asgard and we can work out a few more problems, you'll be gone before long. So what have you learned?" _Because it doesn't sound like you've learned anything. Except you haven't killed anyone. That I know of,_ she thought with a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold.


	37. (36) Fear

**Beneath**

**Chapter Thirty-Six – Fear**

Jane woke slowly the next day, and remained lazily in bed, letting yesterday's events wash over her, filtering slowly through her early morning haze. She'd left Loki out at MAPO and come back here and gone right to sleep. Loki had presumably followed later and gone back to his own spartan room two doors down.

Something felt off about the whole thing. _Loki is the Bad Guy. That makes me the Good Guy. The Good Guy isn't supposed to help the Bad Guy…right? Even if his goals line up with yours?_ Jane tried and tried to find a reason why she _shouldn't_ help Loki get back to Asgard, and she couldn't. He got what he wanted, and she got what she wanted. Him gone. And…oh, and that was shameful. She got to be the first to prove through science that traversable wormholes – even if they weren't exactly what she initially expected, or at least _this_ one wasn't – really existed. _Isn't that what they call a Faustian deal or bargain or something like that?_

Ultimately, though, she rejected that notion. She wasn't doing this, helping Loki by continuing her work, for science. What she learned scientifically would be a fringe benefit that would hardly make up for the years this stress was going to take off her life. If she could directly contact Thor and if she could know that he could come here, collect Loki, and take him anywhere in the universe that was _not_ Earth, that would be her Plan A. But since she couldn't do that, sending him back to Asgard _herself_ in a few days, if Pathfinder and Yggdrasil did what they wanted them to do, that was almost as good. She pictured herself sticking a bow onto his shoulder with a little card. _"He's all yours again! No returns accepted."_

Jane sat up and scooted around to rest her back against the wall, pulling her legs up to her chest and hugging them tight as she rotated her neck around in a slow circle to work out a kink. The fact that she could even imagine such a farce was, quite possibly, an early sign that she was finally losing her mind. The psych eval for coming out here, after all, had asked about hearing voices and dealing with isolation and having a temper and substance abuse and getting a thrill out of fire. It hadn't asked anything at all about spending the winter trapped with a deranged Norse god.

Her lungs filled in a rush and her eyelids fluttered closed as a beautiful memory came back to her so strongly she could almost imagine she was _there_ instead of _here._ A green and blue aurora slowly undulated through the night sky over the Norwegian Sea and she was underdressed for the cold, but she huddled into the warmth beside her. _"Come with me."_

An invitation like none other. And she'd turned it down to come _here._

_Why didn't you insist? Why didn't you ask again? Why didn't you try even the tiniest bit to convince me?_

She sighed and gave her legs a squeeze. Blaming Thor was petty. This wasn't his fault. He'd warned her, he'd checked on her. And somehow, somehow…

_How did Loki _do _all this? How did he even get here? They had his name at the CDC. He was on the flight manifest. He had a room assigned here. There was that e-mail from SHIELD _telling _her they were sending her an assistant named Lucas Cane. How could he possibly have…_

Jane clamped a hand over her mouth as something twisted in her gut. What if there _was_ a real Lucas Cane, and Loki had killed him and taken his place? She had to take the hand away from her mouth because she was no longer getting enough air through just her nose. Some poor innocent grad student out there, studying astrophysics, given the chance of a lifetime, tracked down by Loki…

A bundle of raw nerves, Jane pushed away from the wall and jumped to the floor, ignoring the footstool and the pain upon impact with the floor. She was nearly overwhelmed with the urge to _run_. But there was nowhere to run to, unless she wanted to run laps back and forth through the station's corridors, or take a hypothermia-inducing sprint to one of the outbuildings. Even if she first bundled up in every piece of clothing she had here, the furthest she could get from exactly where she stood right now – and survive after getting there – was maybe a mile and a half. So she paced. It was hard enough to do even that in an eight by ten room.

And then she remembered. _No. There's no real Lucas Cane. Not one he killed and replaced, anyway._ She'd looked him up online already. No hint of an astrophysicist out there with that name. She remembered she'd been suspicious because his name wasn't even on his university department's webpage. _He said...changed his name…hiding from his family…that scar…_

She froze in her pacing, in the middle of the room, and put a hand out to grip the back of her chair. _Was some of that _true_? _It was just too much to take in all at once. She flipped the chair around so it was facing the door and let herself fall into it. _He _is_ hiding from them. _Thor_ certainly doesn't know he's here. But the scar…he said his family branded him with a…a family seal of some sort. What was that? Some kind of play for my sympathy?_ She didn't for a minute believe that was true. Thor _loved_ his father. He'd been heartbroken when he'd thought his father was dead, thought that he was somehow responsible for it. Odin couldn't possibly be so abusive. _And Loki said his brother was _there_, that he just stood there and watched while his father pressed a hot poker into his wrist._ She also knew Thor loved his brother, and that he wouldn't stand by while such a cruel thing was done to him. Of course, Loki had also mentioned a sister, and as far as she knew they had no sister, so who knew what was true and what wasn't?

He'd looked so frightening when he was staring down at that scar, so full of rage. _That was Loki_, she realized. _That was the real him._ And it was terrifying.

Jane twisted around so that her upper body faced the desk; she turned on her laptop and brought up her e-mail. No new messages. No responses to her plea for help, nothing at all. Somehow Loki really had made sure no one would get that message. _Magic? But if he can do that with some kind of magic, why can't he just send himself to… Right. His "task." He has to use our technology. Maybe he was telling the truth, then. At least about _that_._

Everything else, though, from the very beginning, must have been a lie, Jane reasoned. When he first found her, in Sydney. _"I'm Lucas Cane."_ _Sure you are, you-_ Jane's eyes narrowed. There was something strange about that memory, of first meeting him. She'd been relaxing on a bench looking out over Sydney Cove; she'd turned and seen him. He'd looked familiar, but she hadn't been able to immediately place him. Like when you see someone you know in such a completely unexpected context that you don't recognize the person right away. He'd looked familiar…and then he hadn't.

_He _did_ something to me!_ Jane realized with equal measure of horror and anger. _He _made _me not remember him._ That image she'd seen so many times of him taking over Erik's and two other people's minds played themselves again in rapid sequence. Her breathing became so rapid and shallow it was approaching hyperventilation. _But he doesn't…he doesn't _control_ me,_ she tried to reason with herself. _He doesn't have that blue glowy magic thing. He doesn't have the tesseract. _And Erik had told her it was like being in a fog, and that he didn't remember much of it. Though she had never entirely believed him, suspecting that was a way to avoid talking about it.

Regardless of how exactly it worked, it was clear that the people under his control were doing what _Loki_ wanted, without even any instruction from him, without any consideration for what _they_ wanted. Clint Barton had shot Nick Fury; Erik had opened up a portal to permit Earth's invasion. _I'm not feeling any desire to go serve Loki._

Her breathing slowed and her stomach dropped. _Except that's exactly what I did last night._

_Right back to Square One. The Good Guy doesn't help the Bad Guy._

And so the argument started up again, and she'd gotten fully halfway back to its end-/beginning-point when she realized what was going on. Before she could follow the latest horrifying revelation too far, though, there was a knock at her door, and that meant Loki.

Jane glanced down at herself; she had slept in her long johns. They weren't exactly a revealing garment, but still she jumped up and grabbed for the blue terrycloth robe that had been slung over the foot of the bed's tall frame. She wrapped it tightly around herself and opened the door.

"Good morning, Jane. Did you sleep well?" Loki asked. There was something utterly farcical about it, to both of them – Loki because he was falling into the pattern of the South Pole greeting and Jane because she knew Loki wasn't the slightest bit concerned about how well she'd slept. Loki, though, _was_ concerned about how she'd slept; he knew she'd need it more than he to be able to work efficiently.

Jane regarded him for a split second, in his dockers and dark green-gray ribbed turtleneck sweater that made him look even taller than he was. "I'm not helping you anymore," Jane blurted out. _Oh, God,_ _did I just say that out loud?_ she asked herself with such clarity it could have been spoken aloud, and if it was an actual appeal to anyone it was an appeal to _God_ and certainly not to the man standing in front of her who seemed to want to share the title according to what she'd read in SHIELD's reports. _Don't antagonize him!_ she reminded herself. _Too late._

"What?" Loki's face was cold, unemotional, but tension was clear in his voice. He stepped forward and Jane, so much shorter, could either be toppled over or step back.

She stepped back. He closed the door behind him.

"I think I must have misheard you. Would you care to explain what you _meant_ to say?" Loki asked, demanded, really. It had been unpleasant enough to have this conversation once; there'd been no enjoyment in it the way there had been in his earlier manipulations of her, only necessity. Not to mention it was highly inconvenient. He didn't want to have to convince her anew every day.

Jane swallowed with some difficulty. She'd opened this door; she had too much pride – foolishness? – to try to pretend she hadn't and sneak it closed. She wasn't good at not antagonizing. She was good at saying what was on her mind. "You lied to me."

_You'll have to be more specific than that,_ Loki wanted to say, but he certainly knew better. "I've told you the truth about everything but my name. And even then I told you I'd changed it. Would you care to inspect my passport? My driver's license? They say 'Lucas Cane,' just as I told you."

"How can you stand there and say that? You've lied to me about _everything_ since the day we met. You told me SHIELD sent you. SHIELD never sent you. I'm guessing SHIELD's never heard of Lucas Cane. I mentioned you once or twice in my e-mails; you must have made sure those didn't go through, too. Or else you…you did _something_ so that they never saw your name. And then you told me that SHIELD tried to get you to spy on me, and that Selby was asking questions about me, and you implied that anyone here could've been recruited to report to SHIELD. I cut myself off from _everyone_ here. Everyone except _you_. And it was all lies, Lucas, every word of it. The only one here spying on me was _you_, from the very beginning. You were trying to control me just like Erik, only they took your…your…that staff thing away." Jane caught herself on another realization and broke into anxiety-fueled laughter completely disconnected from the fear she knew she should be feeling. "You said you wanted to destroy SHIELD. That stuck in my memory because sometimes I really hate them and even _I _wouldn't say that. But you did, didn't you? You wanted to destroy them. And maybe you still do? I have no idea what you really want to accomplish here. Even if all you really want to do is go back to Asgard…I can't help you. I _won't_. Not after everything you've done here."

"After everything I've done here? Like what, Jane? I've worked by your side all day and studied all night. Do you think we study 'dark matter' and 'muons' and 'neutrinos' and 'Einstein-Rosen Bridges' on Asgard? We look at things in a completely different way, but I gave up sleep so that I could learn the Midgardian way. _Your_ way. I've scrubbed sinks and toilets and floors and dishes. Do you think I ever had to do such things in my entire life before this? I was born a prince. You said I lied about everything? I lied about very little. I told you I had servants for such things. I played darts with your friends and went on that miserable excuse for a sled ride and went to the sunset dinner and the concert and party afterward and I watched a movie and I went skiing. Oh, and let's not forget, I pretended to be unconscious so you could practice your emergency response skills."

"You were faking being sick that one day, weren't you," Jane said before he could go on. It wasn't a question. She knew now. He'd faked everything every minute he'd been here.

"Can you blame me?" Loki asked with a sigh. "Jane…I only wanted to keep you focused on your work. That's all I've ever wanted, and it's all I want now. So 'after everything I've done here'…are these the deeds over which you now refuse to help me return to my family?" Loki asked, keeping his expression simple and open. Too earnest and she wouldn't believe him, he knew. And he didn't want to upset her by pressing her on the family issue, but he would if he had to. He hoped mentioning it would be enough.

Jane was caught on "are these the deeds" and barely noticed the reference to family. _You know perfectly well those aren't the "deeds" I was referring to. How about trying to kill Thor? How about trying to kill half of New York and rule the other half plus the rest of the world? How about Phil Coulson? How about Jocelyn Waters? How about what you did to Erik?!_ But somehow she managed to pull herself back from giving any of those thoughts voice, just barely. "Fine. I'll help you," she finally said. Not because she wanted to, really, but because as she saw it she had little choice. It was the safest, fastest way to be free of him.

"Thank you, Jane," Loki said with a look of honest relief, glad that at least this time convincing her had been quick and fairly easy. "I-" _I appreciate it,_ he'd intended to say, to demonstrate his "humanity," but he'd also reached out. For what exactly he wasn't even sure after the fact – perhaps for her arm, perhaps simply as a gesture – because she stepped away from him before he could finish. And quite unexpectedly, it stung. It shouldn't matter; the only thing that _should_ matter was that she had agreed to continue working with him. It stung nevertheless.

"Jane…what can I do to convince you you're in no danger from me?"

Jane's eyes went wide with disbelief. "Uhhh, I don't know, turn back the clock and _not_ try to conquer my planet? There's _nothing_ you can do. You _killed_ people. I don't usually hang out with mass murderers, okay? So you'll have to forgive me if I'm not entirely comfortable around you, if I don't feel safe."

"Have you ever 'hung out' with soldiers? You said Gary the machinist was in your military. Has he not fought in battles and killed his enemies?"

"I have no idea. But are you _seriously_ comparing yourself to Gary? To _any_ soldier? You aren't a soldier. You attacked us entirely unprovoked and killed a lot of innocent people!" And somewhere in all that the fear was crowded out by the anger, and _don't antagonize him_ was totally forgotten.

"Lower your voice!" Loki hissed. Half the station could have heard that, and _that_ was a complication he certainly didn't need. "And what nonsense is this? Innocent people? When would I have found the time for that? I was leading a battle. I killed none who were not actively opposing me."

"Are you serious?" Jane asked, incredulous. "Did you _see _New York? Did you ever stop and look at it?"

He _had_ stopped. He _had_ looked. It was exciting and magnificent and horrific. And after he'd had his fill of stopping and looking he'd stabbed Thor and jumped onto a racer to join the wider battle, where the Chitauri – not _him_, the Chitauri – were causing wanton destruction. "You cannot blame me for what the Chitauri did. What your own 'Avengers' did, especially your Hulk."

"You took control of my friend's mind," Jane said softly, angrily, backing away from the bigger picture that he apparently felt no responsibility for and turning almost inevitably, it felt like, to what had hurt her personally the most.

"I never hurt him," Loki said, not bothering to try to lie about it. He knew she knew; he knew she'd seen the video. "And more importantly I'm not taking control of _your_ mind."

Jane took a moment to steady herself, to rein in her urge to physically lash out at him for his casual denial that he'd hurt Erik. "But you did control my thoughts. You just did it with words and not magic or alien technology."

Loki likewise took a moment. He was growing impatient, and impatience right now would be most unhelpful. "We have already had this conversation, Jane. You have accused me of telling you nothing but lies. You have insulted me. You have blamed me for deaths. You have done this here in your room, with no one else around to see what happens. And tell me, what awful revenge have I inflicted on you in response?"

_He has a point,_ Jane thought with a defeated sigh. But she wasn't about to concede the point out loud. "Wait," she blurted out, remembering another thing that had set her off earlier. "You did something to me. When we first met. What did you do to me?"

"I did nothing."

"Yes, you did. I know you did. If you want me to help you, you have to tell me. I need to know," she said, desperation growing in her voice, for she couldn't imagine anything more awful than the idea of him having access to her mind, able to manipulate her thoughts and memories.

Loki stared at her in curiosity. One minute she was cowering in fear, the next minute she was yelling at him, and the next she was almost trembling. He tried to appear non-threatening, because he understood that last fear, much as he'd hoped to avoid discussing it. He'd trembled and worse when the Chitauri had tried to toy with _his _memories. What he'd done to Jane was nothing by comparison. "That?" he asked dismissively. "I did very little. Merely obscured my appearance in your memories. I felt I had no choice. As I've already told you, I knew you would be unlikely to help me if you knew who I really was. Your memories are your own, Jane. I did nothing else, and I _will_ do nothing else."

"Swear it," she said immediately. She wasn't sure if it really meant anything to him or not. He'd _said_ it did; of course he was also an unrepentant liar and manipulator, but it was all she had.

"All right. I swear it." He would take whatever good faith he could get. Besides, once one figured out what was going on, it was more difficult to be fooled that way again. If he tried to obscure any further memories it was highly unlikely to work and would cost him every bit of trust he might otherwise earn.

Jane sighed and nodded. She was out of words. She was exhausted and it couldn't be 7 AM yet.

"If you're feeling better, then…" Loki prompted, when Jane remained silent.

She looked up at him, and her mind almost…_almost!_...switched fully over to work mode. _The transmitter test._ "Did you finish the circuit boards?"

"I did. And I assembled the hollow probe. We can test as soon as we get out there and get the equipment set up."

"Okay," Jane said, nodding. "I need breakfast. I'll get dressed, grab something quick, and we can go do it."

"Good. I'll go out now and start getting things ready."

/

* * *

/

A little over an hour later, Jane and Loki stood together in front of a laptop, a familiar position now made unfamiliar and uncomfortable for Jane.

But this was work. She could do this. She told herself she could, at least. Constantly. "Everything looks good," she said. "I think we're ready to launch."

"Agreed," Loki said, pulling his balaclava back on in preparation for going outside into the twilight again.

As they made their way out to where Pathfinder was set up behind the jamesway, Jane found her thoughts drifting from the safety of work toward unsettling questions. She had so many of them, and more arose every time she had a chance to think about things. She wasn't sure if she should ask – how he would react to it – but both by inclination and by training, asking questions was her nature.

"Do you… What happened between you and Thor?" she finally asked, carefully keeping the question accusation-free. They were already just steps from Pathfinder.

"I could ask the same of you," Loki said immediately.

Jane stopped short and stared at Loki's back as he continued forward over the ice, alongside the snow drifts building up behind the jamesway.

Loki carefully set the nearly-hollow probe on its stand atop Pathfinder, then turned around to face Jane. "Did you really expect me to answer? I certainly didn't expect _you_ to. As I said before, we aren't friends. I don't talk about my family, and you don't talk about… All we need to talk about is _this_," he said, pointing down at Pathfinder. He'd talked about his "family" before, but he'd done so from behind a mask, and he'd done it for a purpose. The mask was gone now, the outermost layer of it, anyway, so that was not happening again. There was no need. And if she had surprised him and decided to talk about whatever feelings she had for Thor, he would probably have clamped a hand over her mouth to physically prevent it. Even if the subject _did_ hold a certain morbid fascination for him.

"I remember that. When you said we aren't friends. You actually-" _Hurt my feelings._ _What a joke!_ Jane thought, shaking her head. _I wanted to make friends with the guy who… _Jane let the thought trail off. No use going down that path again. "But you…," she began, faltering, as snatches of different conversations filtered through emerging memories. "The way you talked about your mother. I wanted to help you. I wanted her to know you were okay. Your mother, all the things you said about your family, did you mean any of that? Do you-"

"Jane. Stop it. My mother…is none of your concern." Loki tried to put something of a warning edge in his voice, but it didn't come out quite right, because at that moment, as he was about to take another step toward leaving Midgard, toward perhaps never seeing his mother again, other emotions had slipped in through the cracks of the barriers he'd built against them. His mother was a weakness for him, he realized then, and that was unacceptable. He needed to rid himself of _all_ weakness.

_Loki has a mother. And he _loves _her_. Jane wanted to laugh. Not because it was funny. Because it was so…incongruous. Unexpected. And yet obvious once given a moment's thought. Loki was the Bad Guy. But even Bad Guys were people. Capable of love, capable of being loved. Jane knew Thor loved him, and the way Loki talked about his mother, he had no doubt she loved him, too. She remembered how wistful and _warm_ he'd looked when he talked about her, about how she'd never fixed a clogged sink and the thought was…appalling but funny, Jane thought he'd said. And of course _that_ made even more sense now. His mother wasn't some rich society woman, she was the queen of an entire planet. Or whatever Asgard was. And Loki _loved_ her.

"Jane. Pathfinder," Loki said, both words commands tinged with anger. She was staring at him, staring _through_ him, through the layers, cutting them away. Like acid. That was also unacceptable.

Jane took a deep breath of cold air through the balaclava and nodded. "Everything's ready. Go ahead." She took several more steps back and watched as Loki pressed the launch primer button – an act which had gone from anti-climactic to simply routine now that it was being done for the fourth time, except that now it was _Loki_ doing it. He stepped back to stand at her side as the seconds ticked down, then came the familiar flash of blue light and the probe shell was gone too fast for the eye to track. In an hour they would try to recall the probe and determine if the changes – the use of one of Young-Soo's new lens filters on Pathfinder, Loki's increasing the battery power in the transmitter, and a few minor tweaks in the programming – had worked. If so, then the next step would be to launch an actual probe, one of the three remaining that had been built with SHIELD's resources, and _that_ probe would tell them where something sent through Yggdrasil wound up.

"Wait…this is really Yggdrasil then?" Jane suddenly asked as they lingered watching Pathfinder and its now-empty launch stand, each lost to their own thoughts. "Did you know that all along? I was the one who first mentioned it to you. But you must have known all along."

"I'm not-"

"And don't tell me you're not here to satisfy my curiosity. You _owe_ me this much, after everything you've put me through. And it's relevant to the work. Tell me what you know about Yggdrasil." Her eyes then went a little wide at her own boldness and sudden complete lack of fear. _Where did _that_ come from? "You owe me?"_ But somehow he seemed a little more human now, a little less terrifying.

"I wasn't going to say that. You're right; it _is_ relevant. But you're wrong that you first suggested it to me. _I _first suggested it to _you._ Early one morning."

She nodded slowly, remembering that morning. "'An ancient wormhole.' You knew all along."

He shook his head. "I had just figured it out."

"How?"

"It doesn't matter." _And I'll never tell you about _that. "We use the bifrost for travel; you know that, right? You may know it as the Rainbow Bridge."

"Yes. But I don't know much about it. I don't know how it works." _I know Thor was forced to destroy it to stop _you_ from destroying Jotunheim._

"No one really knows how it _works_. It simply does." _Perhaps Heimdall, _he thought, but he wasn't going to tell her anything beyond what was directly relevant to travel through Yggdrasil. "I now believe that the bifrost powers and directs matter through Yggdrasil. We currently have no way to _direct_ where the probe goes once it enters Yggdrasil."

"We might be able to-"

"I know, we might be able to program it once we see what data we get back from a functioning probe. But the bifrost…" Loki thought back to when he'd used it. It was easy. Of course, he'd had Gungnir then, and Gungnir tended to make things easy. "You need only activate it, and think of your intended destination, and it opens and takes you where you wish to go."

"Magic," Jane said, captivated.

"Yes," Loki answered with a single nod.

"Can you…do that with Pathfinder?"

"Do what? Turn it on and _think_ my way to Asgard? No, Jane. And if I could, that wouldn't satisfy the requirements of my task, now, would it?"

_Arrogant condescending jerk._ But the fear wasn't truly _completely_ gone and Jane still had at least some self-control.

"There's not much more I can tell you, except that I do believe it leads to Asgard by default, if you will. When we speak of Yggdrasil as the worlds' tree, we describe Asgard as being at the very top, in its crown." _Because "we" Aesir are nothing if not arrogant and condescending._ Odin's Asgard could stand to be knocked a few branches lower, Loki thought, and wondered if perhaps he could assist with the knocking once he was free of Odin's restrictions. _That_ would show the All-Father the impermanence of his lessons.

"Where is Midgard?" Jane asked, remembering the sketch in her notebook. Thor had started from the bottom with Midgard, but she hadn't assigned any significance to that other than the fact that it was their point of commonality, a good place to begin.

Loki smiled maliciously, knowing Jane couldn't see it. "At the bottom."

Jane was spared from what might be an unhealthy response to that statement by a sudden brightness in the post-sunset twilight. She and Loki both turned away from each other and toward Pathfinder.

The probe was back.

After a second or two of shock Jane was racing forward, Loki following behind her. She reached out instinctively to touch the round metal shell, but even leaning over it she could feel the ice melting around the material over her mouth. It was probably too hot to touch.

"How did it come back?" Loki asked, staring at it suspiciously, then glancing upward. If it had been discovered on Asgard, and sent back here by Heimdall, everything he'd worked for here was about to be for nothing.

Jane shook her head, then straightened up and slapped her gloved right head against her forehead. "The pre-sets! I completely forgot. You can trigger a recall through Pathfinder, but there are also programmable automated recalls, one for distance and one for time. And they were pre-set to something…something ridiculous, something enormous…a million light years' distance and a million years' time, I don't know, I don't remember. I never expected them to be activated. My original plans-"

"It hasn't been a million years."

"I know."

"That means-"

"I _know_."

"We need to get a real probe ready."

"Can you boost the power on its transmitter's battery?"

Loki nodded.

"How long?"

"An hour. Perhaps two." It was a lie, of course. He would do it through magic, and the only real time required would be for opening the probe's shell, taking the transmitter out and apart, and putting everything back together again. But if he told her it would take ten minutes she would want to wait with him while he did it, and he didn't want her to see him adjusting the battery with magic, since that would fly in the face of what he'd told her about having to accomplish his task solely through Earth's science. He took no particular pleasure now in lying to Jane or manipulating her, but he _did_ take satisfaction in the rather impeccable logic of his story and he wasn't going to risk it blowing up in his face.

"I could stay and wait…"

"No, Jane. I don't need you staring over my shoulder. Why don't you go back to the station, work on your original project? Neither of us needs SHIELD wondering where your next update or data package is, right?"

Jane looked away and gave a reluctant nod. She wondered if she was imagining the veiled threat in his words. "Fine. But I have to do house mouse chores first. Funny how you managed to get out of it again."

"What must be done today?"

"Clearing the station's emergency stairs of snow."

"Go work on your data. I'll come get you when I'm done here and we'll launch the probe. Then _I'll_ clear the stairs. We won't be able to do anything else until we get data back and get it analyzed, right?" They both won this way, Loki figured. He needed Jane's trust and this might help him earn some points with her, and she got out of a chore which was physically taxing for her. Besides, once they launched the probe with all of its high-tech sensors and data loggers, Loki expected the distraction of physical labor would be a welcome one.

Jane agreed and left him to his work back inside the minimally heated jamesway. He worked quickly, not fully trusting Jane to stick to her agreement not to reveal him. She could do nothing via e-mail. Over her computer she could make phone calls, but if she used the word _Loki_ or _Lucas_ the connection would be cut and he would receive an alert in his e-mail; she would be unable to use her VOIP system again until he permitted it. It was hardly a foolproof plan, but it was the best he'd been able to do under the circumstances. Then there were the satellite telephones. Short of disabling every one at the station there was nothing he could do about that. And disabling them all would raise too many alarms.

When half an hour had passed, he decided to go find Jane and tell her the battery recalibration took less time than expected. He tugged all of his gear back on, thinking with a small smile that he wouldn't have to do that many times more. He found Jane right where he expected – or at least hoped – she would be, working in the Station's Science Lab; she stopped what she was doing and followed eagerly, seemingly more at ease with him now. He knew if she could stop focusing on her fear of him and focus on the science instead, everything would go smoothly. It was working. She was probably even as anxious to get this data back as he was.

They stood before Pathfinder again, a probe that was _not_ nearly empty resting on the stand.

"You're sure five minutes is enough?" Loki asked for the second time.

"It was gone less than that before. That's more than enough time to reach its destination," Jane said for the second time.

"Yes, but how will we-"

"When the probe emerges from the wormhole, it'll collect all sorts of data right away. It really only needs a few seconds to gather what we need. It's the analysis, turning all that compressed raw data into something useable, that'll take a while. Got it?"

"_Got it_, Dr. Foster," Loki answered in annoyance.

Jane wheeled away from him to face Pathfinder, afraid she'd say something in response he might make her regret. "All right, then. Ready?" She glanced up at Loki, and once he nodded she pressed the launch primer and they repeated the ritual.

As they stood there waiting for the adjusted pre-set timer to count down and bring the probe back, Jane glanced surreptitiously at Loki. Something still felt _off_ about the whole thing. Maybe it was impossible to stand inches from _Loki_ and not feel like there was something off. "So…you're supposed to learn to appreciate people while you're here. Mortals."

Loki turned to stare at her for a moment before settling his gaze back on Pathfinder. "Yes." And he hoped she would leave it at that but he knew her well enough to know she wouldn't. Especially now that she had begun to relax around him and fear wasn't tempering her tongue as much.

"What have you learned?"

His lips thinned and his expression turned hard. _How to manipulate you into doing exactly what I want you to do without even the tiniest wisp of magic. Father will be so pleased._

"I'm serious. If we find out the probe made it to Asgard and we can work out a few more problems, you'll be gone before long. So what have you learned?" _Because it doesn't sound like you've learned anything. Except you haven't killed anyone else. That I know of,_ she thought with a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold.

Loki stared hard at Pathfinder and willed it to bring the probe back _now._ "I've learned to appreciate your technology. Your science," he finally said.

"I thought you were supposed to learn to appreciate our people."

"I…yes. And I have." And oh, how thankful Loki was for the balaclava hiding his venomous expression. He could not bear much more of this ridiculous questioning.

"But you…you don't…you don't regret what you did before." _"Innocent people…nonsense."_ If he could say that Jane knew he hadn't learned anything at all.

"I regret it," Loki said, forcing the words out. "I regret it greatly." _I regret that I failed. I regret that this enables you to have the audacity to question me so._ "It's difficult for me to talk about it," he added, because he knew he didn't sound much like he regretted it.

_I think you regret that you failed. That you don't care at all about the lives you took. The lives you destroyed. Is _this_ what punishment is where you're from? You get to come down here, learn a little science, keep looking down on us and lying to us and then go home and everything's just fine and dandy?_ Jane gave up staring at Loki's profile and turned back to Pathfinder, too. It wasn't fair. It wasn't right. He shouldn't get to go back that easily. But the obvious alternative was him _not _going back. Him staying _here._ And in that case…she would do everything in her power to make sure he went back, as soon as possible. There was no reason, however, that she couldn't try to make him learn something before he left, at the same time as she did her best to expedite his departure.

A light flashed, Jane blinked, and the probe was back. She sighed in relief; the earlier success wasn't a fluke. Pathfinder worked. The transmitter worked. The probe had just come from _somewhere_. "Go on and take care of the stairs. I'll take care of this."

"Very well," Loki said, relieved to get away from her and her insulting comments. The waiting game began now.

Jane waited a few minutes for the probe to cool – it didn't take long out here – then brought it into the jamesway and opened the shell to get at the data it had gathered and stored on its five-minute journey. She hooked it up to her laptop and left data conversion and analysis programs running on it, then packed up the rest of her things in her backpack, got her gear back on, and headed back to the station.

It was almost lunchtime, but with Loki occupied outside, there was something she needed to do first. When she got back inside she went straight for the Computer Room.

/

* * *

/

In Asgard, as battles raged on into the night and the next day, as one portal was closed and another was opened, as Aesir fell and healers sent as many as possible back into the fray, as Heimdall stretched his gaze across seven realms to try to provide advance notice of the attacks, no one noticed as first one, then another unknown metallic sphere appeared where the bifrost observatory had once stood.

* * *

/

_Previews for Ch. 37 "Squeeze": Loki's in a foul mood and Jane pushes his buttons (I remind you of Ch. 27 "Fun" - _"Dr. Foster, you'll know it if you've pushed me too hard."); _Loki tries out some new lies but his heart just really isn't in it anymore and he wonders if the truth might be more effective; Jane is left stunned and Loki is left to think; Gullveig and the seven realms add a new tactic. Things are still rather chaotic in Asgard; we catch up more fully with events there (and some of your questions will be answered) in Chapter 38 (not yet titled...but already with a few pages written, yay!)_

_And the excerpt (Loki POV):_

He spotted it immediately. Something on his desk that had not been there before. Experience had taught him to be aware of such things, but as his desk was entirely clear otherwise, anything on top of it stood out immediately. Someone had been in his room.

Hypervigilant now for anything else – sight, sound, smell – not as it should be, Loki stepped forward slowly, silently. The desk, against the wall to the right, was only a few steps away. The foreign object was a thick packet of white printer paper, bound with a single large clip of metal and black plastic in the upper left corner, and placed precisely in the center.


	38. (37) Squeeze

**Beneath**

**Chapter Thirty-Seven – Squeeze**

Loki shoveled snow from the emergency stairs in the slowly approaching darkness, under the eerie red lights. It kept his muscles busy, but not his mind. He tried to occupy the latter by running through the steps that remained to get him off Midgard. They were very few, though: confirm the probe had made it to Asgard, adjust the probe's structural integrity field generator to his shape…and that was it. He couldn't think of anything else. _She_ would probably come up with additional steps. Not now, perhaps. She might be willing to forego a few of her safety and testing protocols now that she knew whose life she would be risking.

"_Mass murderer."_ _Where are these masses I've killed? Ask your precious Thor how many _he's_ killed. More have fallen to his hammer than have ever fallen to any weapon _I_ ever wielded. Well. Except for _that_._ But the Frost Giants didn't count, literally. They counted against Thor but not him, and Loki saw no injustice in his unequal evaluation of the Frost Giants Thor killed and those he himself had killed. What Thor had done was Before. What Loki had done was After.

And then he reconsidered. Perhaps he _should_ count the Frost Giants he'd wiped out with the bifrost among his kills. _After all, I am evil, am I not? Tony Stark said so. Odin surely thinks so, probably always has, his little Frost Giant runt in disguise, a disguise insufficient to truly hide what flows through my veins. Thor knows the truth now, even if he tries to pretend otherwise. And Jane…Jane is afraid to be alone with me now. She knows nothing about me and yet she sees the truth._

_She _should_ be afraid,_ Loki thought, in a mood rapidly souring, even though he knew perfectly well this particular menace was hollow. He needed to get away from her for his own sake, to prevent her from ruining him as she had Thor. But he would never hurt her, not now.

She had peeled back one of his layers, and it complicated things in some ways. She was cooperating, though, and in the end that really was all that mattered. He needed her silence, and he needed her help with adjusting the structural integrity field – SHIELD technology with which he was unfamiliar.

At the same time, her knowing who he really was simplified things in other ways. There would be no more overtures of friendship, no more undeserved kindness, no more naïve offers to contact his mother, no more efforts to try to fix him. Now Jane wanted nothing more than for him to depart as soon as possible, and that was for the best.

_What if she changes her mind?_ came a voice from within, deep and rumbling. He didn't want to accept that possibility, but she had already tried it once, if rather feebly. If she refused with greater conviction, he could try a new lie, although he doubted it would have as much success, or he could threaten, although that would undermine the entire narrative he'd created for her. And if she called his bluff…that would be the end. He supposed he could restrain her somehow and force _Selby_ to explain how the structural integrity field generator worked – he wouldn't mind hurting _him_ – but there was no guarantee Selby, or anyone else here other than Jane, would know.

He needed _Jane_. And there was something rather appalling about that. Loki decided that as soon as he was finished with the stairs he would go back out to the jamesway and begin examining that particular piece of technology himself in greater detail; perhaps he could figure it out on his own after all. It would be best not to have to rely on anyone other than himself.

/

* * *

/

Jane had quite possibly just done something really stupid. She was sticking as much as possible to public areas now – first a lingering lunch in the galley with a few people who didn't know her enough to see how off-kilter she was, then working from the Science Lab along with several other scientists, mostly from the Clean Sector atmospheric projects. She tried to concentrate on her work, the project she'd come here to work on originally, but found it difficult. She still wanted to understand exotic matter and how it interacted with neutrinos – and now how it held Yggdrasil open for travel – but other things were more urgent now. Weirdly enough, that meant that she understood Lucas now – weird because there was no longer any "Lucas" to understand. Of course, that attitude of trying to ignore the scientific method and rushing ahead that had so frustrated her was actually Loki's own, she realized, not just from the made-up character he was playing. Loki didn't _really_ care about science at all, it was a means to an end for him.

Which only confirmed her suspicion about him, that he hadn't learned anything at all here. Even if it were true that he'd been sent here to learn to use Earth's science instead of magic – and Jane was hardly convinced of that, since Thor had never mentioned it and Loki's crimes here were hardly against science – he hadn't learned to value scientific discovery in his time here. Jane rolled her eyes. The more she thought about it, the more ridiculous it sounded. She didn't know much about Odin, but she knew Thor, and she knew how much he admired and respected his father, and she knew Thor had supported his father's decision. There was no way the grand purpose for Loki coming here was to "lay down his magic" and build his own bifrost. Not that that changed her decision to help him in the slightest. She still questioned the morality of it, but she hoped the greater good would be served by getting Loki away from her and keeping herself and the other station residents safe.

And so, as she'd decided when they were waiting for the probe to return, she would do her best to make sure he learned something before he left here. It was rather passive-aggressive, what she'd done, not really her style, but she was still too scared to go aggressive-aggressive, or whatever that was called.

She wasn't stupid, either, even though the more she thought about how completely he'd manipulated her this whole time she _felt_ like she was. She wanted him to learn something, but she was also mad, and getting madder. She had calmed down, the fear had settled into something manageable, and anger rushed in to fill its place. Anger at him for what he'd done to her; anger at herself for falling for it.

But she wasn't stupid. She couldn't be in public places twenty-four hours a day. Thor had said something about some kind of "enchantments" that would prevent Loki from hurting anyone; it was why she'd agreed to keep the secret of Loki's presence on Earth in the first place. But he hadn't exactly gone into details about it, and Jane wasn't going to trust her life to it. A flat-head ax was hidden underneath her mattress now.

/

* * *

/

Loki stomped back over the packed snow to the station in a foul mood. The day was wearing on him. Jane had set things off on the wrong foot with her unexpected refusal to assist, with her sanctimonious hatred and disgust. Deserved or not, it didn't mean he _liked_ it. And what had he ever really done to her? He'd lied, so what? It put her in good company. He'd never met anyone he hadn't lied to at some point. It shouldn't surprise him, and it didn't, really – he'd always been judged by people who didn't know him, people who merely knew his name, his reputation. Deserved or not. He used to try to fight it. That was before he knew they'd always been right. _She_ was right. But he still didn't like it.

And now, after hours of examining the structural integrity field generator, he still needed her. It was far more complex than the battery and involved computer programming. He had no real baseline for this technology, no prior experience with it. He wasn't even sure he _needed_ a structural integrity field in the first place; his own inherent "structural integrity" was considerably stronger than a mortal's. He had no idea what the bifrost equivalent of this was; certainly he'd never heard anyone question the safety of traveling by means of it, except for himself, as a young child. Did the bifrost provide some sort of protection during travel, or did the Aesir simply not need any protection? Loki suspected the former, though, based on his own experiences. He'd never felt temperature differences or a lack of air on a normal trip through the bifrost, but when he'd fallen and been stranded in Yggdrasil, he'd felt unbearable extremes of hot and cold and a tortuous lack of air. And that meant he couldn't risk traveling without some kind of structural integrity field. Extreme temperatures were one thing, having one's body ripped apart by extreme gravitational forces were another entirely.

The analysis programs were still running on the probe's data, too. Loki knew it would still be at least a few more hours, but he'd been unable to stop himself from checking repeatedly anyway. In a way it didn't matter. He was confident that an undirected journey would lead to Asgard. And if it didn't, almost any place was better than here, where he was so restricted in what he could do. Even if his miserable luck continued and Yggdrasil somehow deposited him on Jotunheim, he could simply make himself invisible, take the secret passageway to Asgard, and from there on to Svartalfheim. At least he would be well-dressed for the journey this time, he thought, remembering Heimdall's condescending _"You're not dressed warmly enough."_

He hadn't eaten anything today, nor the day before, he realized, not since breakfast. His mouth watered as he thought suddenly of perfectly seasoned lamb chops and an array of fresh steamed vegetables. He was unlikely to find a meal of such fine quality as he'd grown up with when he reached Svartalfheim, where they tended to dry their foods before cooking them. It was better than freezing them first, at least. Loki was used to settling for something less than what he wanted, though. He could deal with it a bit longer.

An early supper, then, he decided as his stomach growled and his hunger grew in response to his train of thought. He entered the station at Destination Alpha, then went upstairs to the second floor and made his way down the corridor to the other end. The galley was to the left but he turned instead to the right, to cast off his ECW gear. His head and hands were already free, and he was unzipping Big Red as he opened the door to his chambers.

He spotted it immediately. Something on his desk that had not been there before. Experience had taught him to be aware of such things, but as his desk was entirely clear otherwise, anything on top of it stood out immediately. Someone had been in his room.

Hypervigilant now for anything else – sight, sound, smell – not as it should be, Loki stepped forward slowly, silently. The desk, against the wall to the right, was only a few steps away. The foreign object was a thick packet of white printer paper, bound with a single large clip of metal and black plastic in the upper left corner, and placed precisely in the center.

There was no sign of any danger or of anything else amiss, and Loki had nothing to fear here from anyone except Jane. No one would have come into his room like this…except Jane.

Loki picked up the papers as though they might burn him, full of trepidation. Whatever this was, it could hardly be good. She'd gone into his room. His eyes flitted around it again, quickly reviewing its meager contents, but even if she'd rifled through all of his belongings she would have found nothing of note, just clothing – Asgardian and Midgardian – and an astronomy book. The only thing of real value was in his black satchel, slung around his neck as always.

He skimmed the top page. A numbered list of names. _Juanita Abalos. John Abshire. Beverly Abshire. Marshall Adams. Jacob Adelstein. Varsha Aggarwal. Rhonda Allen._ The names continued into a second column, 84 total, and two dates followed each name. The second date was the same in each. He recognized that date.

Everything in Loki's face dragged downward. Uneasiness and mild curiosity gave way to that familiar constrained ball of rage that sat in his stomach and yearned to explode. He turned the page. More names. He turned another page. More names. Page after page after page, name after name after name.

He flipped to the back, opened to a random page. A color image of an older dark-skinned man with close-cropped hair smiled at him. _Gabriel Washington was the Chief Financial Officer of Powered Up! software design firm. An alumnus of Fordham University and Columbia University, he is survived by his wife, Vondra…_

Loki gripped the packet of papers and spun on his heel, leaving his room without bothering to close the door behind him. He strode over to the room two doors up from his and threw it open without bothering to knock, then closed it and threw up a sound blanket, yanking at the one recalcitrant corner.

"What. Is. This."

Jane gave a small startled cry and whirled around when the door burst open. She'd been putting away laundry in her armoire; the shirt she'd been folding had fallen to the floor. It took another second before she fully processed what was going on – that Loki had barged into her room, that he was holding out a familiar stack of papers, and that he was demanding to know what the papers were. And that he looked really, really, angry.

"I think you know exactly what it is," Jane said as calmly as she could manage.

"And yet I asked you to explain it to me," Loki said, his voice cold and hard like steel.

Jane swallowed. _I-statements,_ she told herself, for some reason flashing back to an article she'd read in a teen magazine once about how to express your feelings in difficult situations. "I feel…that you haven't learned as much as your father would want you to before you go home. So I thought I should help you see the impact of what you did when you were on Earth before."

"My _father_? What do you know of my father? Of what he wants? Of who he even _is_?" Loki demanded, shortening the already small gap between him and Jane.

"I know what Thor told me, that your father wanted you to come here so you could learn, like Thor did, and-"

"Like _Thor_? I'm not like Thor. And you don't know me. How dare you presume that you have anything to teach me? Have you even lived thirty years? I've lived over one thousand and thirty. You know nothing of the life I've lived, or who I am."

"I know who you are now. I don't care who you were when you were learning to walk at a hundred and fifty-"

"I'm told I learned to walk before my first birthday, thank you. And that it was rather impressive since Thor insisted on trying to carry me everywhere and gave me little opportunity to practice," he said with a disdainful sneer. _Stupid presumptuous mortal._

"Congratulations on that, then. What I was going to say is that I know who you are _now._ That's all that matters."

"Oh? You're quite confident of that, are you? Who am I, Jane?"

"You're a murderer who refuses to take any responsibility for what he's done." Jane cringed a little, but hoped the reaction didn't show. The words had come tumbling out so fast she'd forgotten to use an I-statement…but she wasn't sure how far I-statements went when you were calling someone a murderer.

Loki gave a cold, humorless laugh. "Well, I must say it's nice to hear someone speak from the heart for a change. Although I must be rather incompetent at my job. So far as I'm aware, all station personnel are present and accounted for."

"You know what I mean."

"Yes, I know well the meaning of the word 'now.' And I know where I've been living since early February."

"You can dissect the semantics all you want. You know exactly what I'm talking about. You killed people, Loki. You killed two of my friends."

"I wasn't aware you had so many friends in SHIELD. And by the way, why do you assume that was my decision in the first place?" he asked, glossing over these supposed "friends." She may have known people in SHIELD, but as far as he was aware the only friend she'd had there was Erik Selvig, and he wasn't dead.

Jane was shaking her head in confusion and at the same time rejection. "What are you saying? You're going to try to tell me it wasn't?"

"Your friend Erik wasn't the only one acting under someone else's orders. I had no free will; I was forced to do what I did. I was controlled as much as Erik was. I had Asgard. Why would I want this planet full of creatures who live and die in the space of a breath and occupy their infinitesimal lifespan with constant squabbling?"

She shook her head now in amazement at his sheer audacity. _When one lie falters, invent another one, hm? No more, Loki._ "Have you ever heard the story about the boy who cried wolf?"

"No. Have you ever heard the story about the impudent mortal who called a god a murderer? In a room all alone with him, so that no one could hear her scream?" he spat back, throwing the papers to the floor.

"You're no god. Don't even try that with me." _And…point taken. _But she couldn't stop now. And it was true, what he'd said before – if he'd wanted to kill her he'd had ample time and opportunity. _Empty threats_, she told herself. She continued, the only sign of her fear a difficult swallow over a dry throat. "Suffice it to say you've cried wolf way too many times, Loki. I saw SHIELD's footage. Nobody was controlling you. Nobody except yourself."

Loki's jaw tightened for a moment. "You don't know what they were like, those others. I was tormented. I was forced to do what I did. I had no choice in the matter." And even though there was _some_ measure of truth in this, he knew the words would ring false as soon as he said them. He was off-balance, his anger too close to the surface. He was reacting and not _thinking._

"Uh-huh. Want to try Version Three? Oh! I have an idea. It wasn't you at all. It was your identical twin brother. Whose role in life is to go around making you look bad. How about that?"

There was something grossly ironic in that, but Loki wasn't in the right frame of mind to think too deeply about it. He felt the muscles in his face straining, pulling the skin taut over hard, angry features. He would like very much to hear this story about the boy who cried wolf. He was guessing it paralleled an Asgardian story that could easily be referred to as "the boy who cried bilgesnipe." Jane wouldn't believe anything he said now, even if it were the unadulterated truth. "It's true I'm known as the god of lies," he finally said. "Then again…I suppose I could be lying."

Jane watched as he smiled some awful smile in which she glimpsed his teeth, and she almost could have believed it was _him _the boy saw when he finally really saw a wolf. "No, _that_ I believe. Do you just genuinely not care at all, then? No remorse whatsoever for all of the lives you took?"

"Your nation fights in wars, does it not? Should your warriors be remorseful over the enemies they slay in battle?"

"I think you're comparing apples and oranges. You-"

"Am I the apple or the orange? I prefer apples. Though not Midgardian ones."

"How can you joke about this?" Jane demanded, all thoughts of I-statements gone, all reminders not to antagonize him forgotten. "Is it all just one big game to you? People's _lives_?You…you're…you're a heartless monster!"

Loki closed the remaining distance between him and Jane, and she took a step back, bumping into the wardrobe. He wanted nothing more at that moment than to show her how much of a monster he really was, and still he restrained himself. "I was fighting a battle. When one does battle, one kills. I don't relish it, but I don't shy away from it, either. And I certainly don't apologize for it. Not to _you_, not to anyone."

"You were doing battle against shopkeepers and dog-walkers and sanitation workers and stay-at-home moms and insurance company workers and lab technicians?"

"If those people work for SHIELD or any other organization that was trying to stop me from gaining what was mine, then yes. Otherwise I have no idea what drivel you're spouting."

"Maybe in your version of the truth they all work for SHIELD, but no, Loki, they didn't. They were just going about their lives when you and your army blasted up their businesses and their cars and the cafes they were eating in and the offices they were working in and the apartments they were living in. You killed over 1,200 people."

"You lie," Loki said slowly, dangerously.

"You're the liar, remember? God of lies?"

Loki clenched his fists and drew himself up to his full height. If he put enough effort into it he thought he might actually be able to step on her. "I killed no more than twenty. And every one of them would have killed me first if given the opportunity."

"Oh, I see, you're using selective math. You're only counting the ones you physically stabbed in the back with the tesseract staff. All the others, Loki, all the ones who died on the streets and in the buildings, all the names on those papers you threw on the floor like trash, who do you think we should blame those deaths on?"

"Not me," he growled, his voice so low it was barely audible, his face so close Jane could feel his breath.

"You want to blame it on those creatures that fought for you? You're delusional. You let them in. You brought them here. You brought them here knowing _exactly_ what they were going to do. Or did you think you were inviting them to a concert and cocktails? You brought them here and they had one purpose – to destroy everything and everyone in their path. We didn't even have any military there. So who exactly _did_ you thinkyou were fighting a battle against?" Jane paused for a quick breath, heart hammering, some voice of wisdom screaming at her to stop as Loki's face reddened with rage, but her own anger overrode wisdom and propelled her forward. "The youngest victim was two months old, Loki. How exactly was he planning on killing you?"

And that was it. Loki snapped, the last tattered bits of his restraint evaporating into the dry air. His hands flew up and found her neck to silence her insolent grating voice. She tried to back away but the armoire blocked her escape. His fingers folded around the base of her skull and over her ears while his thumbs pressed lightly into her throat, enough to stop her, to shut her up, to show her her place. He would have ruled her, her and all the rest, and she had no right to say such things to him. She gave a squeaking, hitching gasp, and he was gratified because there were no words.

As quickly as he'd lost it though, his control started to return. He stared at his hands as though they belonged to someone else, and leaned away from her, ready to release his grip. But in the same moment that his sanity snapped back into place, somehow she had worked her own hands up around his throat and now she was squeezing with a pressure he hadn't imagined her capable of. Instead of letting go, then, he dug his thumbs in deeper, tightening his grip and compressing her airway until the jerking gasps she'd managed ceased and no air at all made it past his fingers.

Jane struggled frantically but felt strength draining from her body more rapidly than she could have imagined, the strange scientific part of her mind that never really shut off cataloguing it and finding it rather fascinating. It was all happening before she'd even realized he was reaching for her. Her eyes strained to stare to her left, at the bed, wishing desperately she could somehow will the ax to her hand the way Thor willed Mjolnir to his. It was so close and yet laughably out of reach, useless. _This isn't happening,_ she told herself as the terror became overwhelming.

Her eyes started to bulge and her face was turning bright red and her grip tightened around his neck; Loki couldn't imagine what inner well of strength she must be drawing on. The voice he'd become used to ignoring screamed at him to unclamp his fingers and let her go, that this was going much further than his momentary outburst of rage, much further than he ever intended, but he would not be the one to release her first. She was struggling, trying to get away from him, but she _wouldn't let go_. Surely she didn't think she could actually best him in a contest of strength.

Jane's world shrank to Loki's hands and the desperate need for oxygen. Everything else was a reflex. Automatic. Her vision was beginning to dim. Her eyes fixed on Loki's and as her thoughts began to grow fuzzy she realized his steel blue eyes were probably the last thing she would ever see.

"Stop!" Loki commanded with great effort behind the word, but still it came out as little more than a wheeze. The pressure on his throat grew, and he squeezed harder in return. She would get the message, she had to, even if he could no longer say it aloud. _Do not fight me. I will win._ She was puny, pitiful, her eyes wide with panic. Her hands feebly grasped and scratched at his. He lowered his gaze to the weak efforts of her fingers. He couldn't breathe at all anymore; he was growing lightheaded and black spots appeared over her hands.

Over her hands…

He jerked away, releasing her and holding his hands out in front of him, trembling fingers spread wide. Sweet air rushed into his burning lungs.

He had inadvertently pushed her when he pulled away, and she stumbled back and downward, collapsing immediately in a gasping, choking heap on the floor while he stared at her in horror and growing comprehension. She huddled in on herself, coughing, gasping, crying. He should check on her. Reach out a hand. Help her to her feet. Carry her to her bed. Apologize.

He turned and walked past her and pulled hard on the doorknob to get out as quickly as possible. He gasped in a ragged breath and forced himself to take measured, normal steps to his chambers. Once inside, he threw up another sound-blocking blanket, stood in the middle of the room, realized his legs were decidedly unsteady, and was unable to stop himself from sinking to the floor, where he leaned at an awkward angle against the bed. His throat still felt constricted, his fingertips were numb, and each breath left him shaking from his mouth to his chest.

He stared, dazed, at his hands.

/

* * *

/

Jane sat for what felt like a very long time hunched on the floor with her back to the armoire, occasionally coughing and continually reminding herself that she was _alive_ and that air was flowing freely through her larynx, even though she could still feel the hands squeezing her throat.

But she couldn't stay down there forever. She refused to stay down. So with intense determination she pushed herself up on unsteady legs. Dizziness hit and her room swam like a mirage. She clenched her fingers on the black metal bed frame as tightly as Loki's fingers had dug into her flesh and bit down hard on her bottom lip, willing herself not to black out. When she didn't, and her vision returned to normal, she grabbed Big Red from where it was hanging on her door and pulled it on over the light green New Zealand T-shirt she wore. She opened the armoire and pulled out the gallon-sized Ziplock bag that held her bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and soap, removing the toiletries and putting them back in the armoire. She pulled out a clean pale blue towel, then stepped over the stack of papers Loki had left on her floor and dropped the towel and empty bag onto the blue comforter – she'd actually made the bed today, because of the ax, whose handle would be visible if the comforter weren't there. _Stupid. Like an ax was going to do anything anyway._

She sat down at her desk, then pulled her bunny boots out from underneath it. She swallowed, and found it hurt. All the more reason to hurry. Jane was hardly a doctor of medicine, but she'd been in a fairly serious relationship with one for a while, and had picked up some basics; she knew she had bruising and swelling to worry about. Ice would help with both, and for better or worse, ice was one thing here that wasn't in short supply. The galley had ice, but it was dinner time, and there was no way she was going there now. Club Med would have been the smartest place to go despite the questions that would be asked, but it never even occurred to her. Nor did making a dash for a satellite phone. All she could think about was the intolerable prospect of wearing the imprint of Loki's hands on her throat for two weeks.

Boots on, she grabbed the towel and plastic bag and shoved both in her backpack, which she slung over one shoulder, then headed out the door, steadfastly refusing to look to her right toward Loki's room. She had no idea where he'd gone after he left, so she simply forced one foot in front of the other, her eyes locked straight ahead. If she saw him, her big plan was to ignore him and keep right on walking.

She headed toward the galley but instead of turning to the left to enter she continued straight, toward the exit that had some other formal name but that everyone called the Beer Can. The stairs there were unheated but enclosed in a cylindrical covering that vaguely resembled its nickname, and provided access to some of the closer outbuildings and the underground ice tunnels she'd never gotten around to getting a tour of. Behind the thick joists on which the station was raised Jane found a spot with sufficient newly drifted snow and a bonus of shadows. She concentrated very hard on the awkward process of scooping snow into the baggie with her heavily gloved hand, so that she would _not_ have to think about anything else.

/

* * *

/

Loki's gaze drifted from his hands, still splayed out on top of his legs in front of him, to the satchel at his side, the bottom of it resting on the floor. It was all over for him here. Jane would never be willing to work with him after this. She would call for help from SHIELD and that would be it. But inside this black leather satchel was another option. A quicker and easier means to Asgard, and from there on to Svartalfheim by his own means. Escape. He pictured himself downing the liquid in the vial hidden away inside the satchel, though, and the downside of that option reared its ugly head. His eyes slowly closed.

It was not so much that he would be taken to Asgard, rather, he would be taken to his mother's side. Loki was many things, few of them good, but he'd never physically hurt a defenseless woman like that. _Though Jane would apparently disagree,_ he thought with a small sardonic laugh that turned into a painful cough and sobered the sarcasm right out of him.

If he hadn't looked down at her hands on his, and in his increasing oxygen deprivation realized what that meant, he wouldn't have stopped. He wouldn't have stopped until he killed her, and he would have told himself it was entirely in self-defense. And yet it wasn't self-defense, not really. He'd never tried to pry her imagined hands from his neck. He'd never tried to get away from her, as she had struggled to get away from him. He didn't want to get away. He wanted to win. He wanted to defeat. He wanted to _conquer_. He drew in a shuddering breath that didn't deliver quite as much air as he expected. He would have conquered her straight to her death and followed her there.

He couldn't see his mother right now. He would never be able to look her in the eye.

Loki set aside all thoughts of putting the vial's contents to use. And that meant his solution for reaching Svartalfheim still lay with Jane. _How can I convince her?_ he asked himself, and a few minutes passed before an answer presented itself. He could tell her that her little "lesson" had worked, that he understood now that he'd caused the deaths of all those people, that he was consumed with immense guilt, that this overwhelming guilt had pushed him over the edge and he'd briefly lost his mind to it and taken it out on her.

He looked up at the ceiling and ran a hand through his hair. Even if he gave his best performance yet, she wouldn't believe it.

Still, there had to be a way. There was _always_ a way. Maybe it wasn't all over. Maybe there was still hope. Maybe he could try the truth. _Maybe she'll say you're crying wolf._ _Maybe she's already on the Iridium phone now._

Loki pushed himself up on legs that were still disconcertingly shaky and swallowed over a throat that was still disconcertingly tight. He was many things, few of them good, but he was not a quitter. Surely he could sell honesty at least as well as he could sell deception. But it was hard to say; he was out of practice.

He checked Comms first, then the Science Lab, and at last a bit of luck went his way. Although Jane hadn't been to either of those locations, Su-Ji had seen her headed for the "Beer Can." Loki hurried in that direction, zipping up Big Red as he went. He was just about to pull on his balaclava when he found Jane crouched on the ground underneath the building.

She heard his crunching footsteps and looked toward him, then shot up and grabbed onto the gray metal support pillar, eyes flashing.

"We have to talk," Loki said. The words came out as a croak.

/

* * *

/

Thor swung Mjolnir around and was just bringing it into a downward arc when the Vanir warrior before him stumbled backward over the body of one of his fellows, his blade falling from his already injured and weakened hand. He had fought well, this man in Vanaheim's blue and gold, and was one of only a few dozen Vanir still fighting on a hilltop overlooking the city. Thor managed to change the angle of his swing and Mjolnir whizzed by the Vanir's left shoulder. The man eyed his blade on the ground next to the fallen warrior.

"Don't. You are defeated."

The man glared at him, but then his posture sagged. Going for the sword would cost him his life and gain him absolutely nothing, and he knew it.

Thor nodded, but he had been at battle now for a full night and a full day, and he felt no particular pleasure in the victory. He mostly felt irritated that he now, with the fighting dying down in this location, had to take the time to figure out what to do with another prisoner before he could move on to where he was next needed.

He stepped forward and kicked at the sword's hilt, putting it out of reach of the prisoner, who didn't flinch from the sudden movement. Now inches from the man's face, Thor narrowed his eyes. He looked familiar. It was no surprise, really. Many of Vanaheim's finest warriors came to train on Asgard to further improve their craft. It had been a concern in fact that Asgard's warriors would not fully commit in a battle against Vanaheim's warriors. Killing the Frost Giants who'd tormented you in your childhood nightmares and wreaked havoc across multiple realms was something entirely different from killing Vanir, whose kin you may call neighbor, teacher, friend, even wife. And while some loyal Asgardian warriors of Vanir background had chosen to serve in other capacities for the duration of the war – many as healers' assistants, public welfare workers, and cooks – many others were fighting alongside their fellow Asgardian citizens. If anyone was holding back, Thor hadn't seen it.

Just as Thor was turning to search for an Einherjar or jailer to take custody of his prisoner, a voice boomed through the sky, with a slight echo that clearly distinguished it from Asgard's wartime communications. Thor looked up but saw nothing other than darkening sky with its swirls of galaxies and nebulae. He looked back down at the prisoner – whom he'd seen move in the periphery of his vision – as he listened.

"Meet our terms, Odin. They are simple terms. They cost you little and your people nothing. Do you think it was by accident that you, your queen, and your heir were not in your throne room? We could have ended you, but it is neither our intent nor our desire. You have our respect. You do not have our subservience. End this, All-Father. The power is yours and yours alone to do so."

The message ended. Despite the echo and a slight tinny quality along with the overly loud volume, about half-way through Thor had recognized the voice as that of King Gullveig of Vanaheim. His face set into an expression that had likely contributed to him occasionally being referred to as "the thunderer." A message to Odin should be delivered to Odin, not to all of Asgard. He had made it public for a reason. Gullveig was attempting to break Asgard's spirits, to turn her people against their king. _Does he think us cowards ready to revolt at the first weapon raised against us?!_

His eyes had grown unfocused, and that had been a mistake. His supposed prisoner, emboldened by his king's voice or by Thor's distraction, dropped to the ground and grabbed something from the body he'd tripped over earlier. The Vanir thrust the object upward toward Thor with both hands – a long knife of some sort. Thor pivoted to the side and the knife raked across his shin, just above the protection of his armored boot. It was a minor wound, especially considering the man had likely been aiming for his femoral artery. Dodging another strike he grabbed the warrior's wrist and twisted hard, suffering only a superficial cut along his thumb, and the knife fell to the ground. Thor dropped Mjolnir as well – the Vanir was already on his knees – and swung his right fist, still holding onto the man's wrist with his left. The Vanir fell, unconscious but alive. Thor grabbed him by the back of his armor and began dragging him through the trampled and uprooted grass toward another group of prisoners nearby, his expression unchanged. But _this_ time there'd been a little pleasure in felling his enemy.

* * *

/

_I confess, I'm kind of quaking in my boots right now. This has been coming for a long time, and it's the story as I want to tell it, but I do hope it doesn't put off too many of you. Loki is full of rage and has given in to violence again...I will in one breath defend him (in a sense, because he really did not intend for that to go so far, and he was horrified by what he did even if he can't fully process it and admit it) and in the next condemn him (because, you know, he put his hands around someone's throat and squeezed). It also speaks to him not being in such control of himself as he thinks he is. In any event, this is part of my acknowledgement that yes, Loki is capable of real violence; I'm not shying away from who he is in _Avengers_. And then, that there's also way more to him than that. I could write many pages on my thoughts on all this, but...I'll leave it at that and write a really long fanfic instead. ;-)_

_Previews from Chapter 38 (haven't decided on the title yet): Well, it's really one thing and one thing only. Jane and Loki deal with what happened in _this _chapter. I initially planned for an Asgardian section as well, but there wasn't room. So, actually Ch. 39 is about half-written already, which means with any luck you'll have an update in half the time!_

_And the excerpt:_

Loki steeled himself. No more procrastinating. _The performance of your life. The truth. Mostly._ "Did Thor tell you about the" – Loki paused, swallowed with difficulty – "restrictions on me when I was sent here?"

Jane thought back to that conversation in her hotel room in Tromso. She nodded. "He said his father…your father…put some kind of enchantments on you. He said you wouldn't be able to hurt anyone." She took a quick breath. "I guess he got that wrong."


	39. (38) Conscience

**Beneath**

Chapter Thirty-Eight – Conscience

Loki looked stern, severe in some strange sense, alien and unnatural with his face entirely bare out here where no one ever went bare-faced for long, certainly not in winter, and freakishly tall in a way Thor never had even though Thor was a little taller. Because Jane had never been _afraid_ of Thor. She'd never really been afraid of anyone before. Not like this.

She was afraid now, in a different way than she had been over the last two days. She detested it. It rebelled and morphed into anger and the anger recoiled into fear and the fear turned back into anger and it made her want to jump out of her skin.

But she stayed in her own uncomfortable skin and looked down at her bag of dry snow. It was full enough. She peeled off the outer and inner gloves from her right hand so she could seal the top of the plastic baggie. She stepped to the right to walk past Loki.

He stepped to the side and blocked her. He cleared his throat. "Did you hear me? I said we have to talk."

_Been there. Done that,_ Jane thought, staring steadfastly at his chest and refusing to look up. Refusing to show just how scared she was.

"What's that for?" he asked, his voice gravelly.

Jane assumed he meant the ice, so she wrapped the bag in the blue towel, then pulled down Big Red's hood and undid its fastenings enough to wrap the towel around her neck, looking up at him at the end with as much defiance as she could muster before it melted away.

"Is that your version of healing?" Loki asked with distaste, wondering how badly he'd hurt her. He didn't think it could be any worse than himself, and he felt fine now except for an unpleasant tightness in his throat.

_That _didn't seem worthy of an answer, and Jane wasn't ready to try out her voice yet anyway. She took a step to the left and Loki blocked her passage again.

"Take that off. I can heal this."

Jane wondered just how delusional Loki was, but kept her look of incredulity carefully below his eyeline. _What would happen if I screamed…?_ _You are so not a screamer, Jane,_ she told herself. _But you aren't _this_ either. You aren't! _She couldn't make up her mind what to do – running was futile and Loki didn't seem willing to let her walk away – so she stayed there, silent, rooted to the ground as though her feet were frozen into the ice, as though she were herself an ice sculpture. _A block of ice. A coward. A victim._ And that thought made the fear spike straight back into anger.

Uncomfortable as with an itch that can't be scratched over Jane's lack of response and the incident that had unquestionably led to her strange behavior, Loki reached for the towel himself.

Jane jerked away from the hand that came toward her neck, then surprised herself as much as Loki by swinging her arm up and slapping him hard. It was kind of like hitting a flesh-covered brick wall but she barely felt it through the surge of anger, and her ungloved hand was already numb in the subzero temperatures anyway. She shoved the hand up between her left side and arm, then just as quickly stuck it out at him again, forming a fist and pointing a finger at him. "_I _am_ not _a_ victim_!" she shouted over her hoarse throat, punctuating the words with stabs of her finger in the air.

Loki watched as the hand went back under the arm. He swallowed, and found his throat had grown even tighter. Her hand wouldn't leave a mark. It wouldn't even have budged his head if he hadn't allowed it to be moved a little, at the end. How had simple anger managed to cast such a thick and deceiving fog over his mind that would lead him to such a stupid mistake, to think she was capable of choking him? _How many other things have I miscalculated because I was blinded by anger? Gambits failed. Battles lost. Anger…is it not sentiment also? "Let go of your anger."_ His mother had said that. But he couldn't. Sentiment or no, he clung to anger. Anger and hatred. He needed it. Without it he was back in the abyss. Without it he had nothing. Without it he _was_ nothing.

Jane was trembling. As weak as any other mortal, weaker than many. But still standing there. She'd pointed a finger in a god's face. No one had dared do that to him on Asgard – no one who wished to retain his finger. "No, you aren't," he finally said, keeping his voice quiet and level, though it still sounded unnaturally harsh to his ears. "Now if you would just let me-"

Jane stepped back, shrinking away from his outstretched hand a second time. "Don't touch me. Don't you ever touch me again," she said, softly, coldly. She took her right hand from under her left arm and shoved it into Big Red's pocket. The cold was pushing steadily up her legs, where she had on only jeans over long underwear, no Carhartts or additional thermals; the last time she'd seen the temperature outside it was -65 with a wind chill approaching triple digits. Her hand probably already had the beginnings of frostbite. She made another attempt to step past Loki and this time he didn't stop her.

Loki watched as she walked away, back to the Beer Can stairs. He dropped his head in thought for a moment, ran his fingers over his lips…realized he could barely feel the contact. He wasn't sure if he could get frost bite – he'd never been in temperatures this cold, and for him a Frost Giant's grip was another phenomenon entirely. _But wouldn't it be ironic if I can?_ He stared hard at his hands again, and before he knew it he heard the clanging of Jane's boots on the grated metal stairs. _Jane_. He still had to deal with Jane. He ran to catch up to her.

"Jane, what happened, it's not what you think. It was…it was a misunderstanding. If you-"

"A misunderstanding?" Jane croaked out, whirling around on the first floor landing. "You're… How is Thor even _related_ to you?"

_Are you actively _trying_ for a repeat, Jane?_ But the thought came only out of spite and ire as she turned on her heel and continued up the stairs. There would be no repeat. And although he knew exactly what she meant, that he wasn't worthy of Thor's blood, of Odin's name, he shook off the insult because he was _glad_ not to be related to that idiot of a brother – man – whom Jane had turned into such a sentimental fool. Loki would not compromise himself like that. But he _would_ explain himself. Whether Jane liked it or not.

He caught her just outside the door at the second floor landing, stretching out his arm to keep the door closed. "I insist that you let me explain what happened."

_And I insist that you get out of my way and off of my planet!_ Jane thought-screamed at him. She forced herself to look up-up-up and meet his gaze, and it was hard, so much harder than it had been before. _What's wrong with you?! You do _not_ let people intimidate you like this._ But there had never been any "like this." Her purse had been snatched once, a couple of times guys had tried to cop an unwanted feel, and SHIELD's Men in Black had physically restrained her twice. Nobody had ever assaulted her like this. _Helpless_. That was the other thing she felt. The thing that made the fear bloom into anger. Experience with getting angry at Loki made the anger shrink back into fear.

"We can sit in the galley. It's dinnertime. Plenty of other people will be around. You have nothing to fear."

"That sounds familiar," she couldn't stop herself from muttering.

Loki drew in a quick breath. He could restrain her and _force_ her to listen, but such an action wouldn't exactly aid his cause.

"Whatever," Jane said. Because nothing had really changed, she was coming to realize. Her options were few, and all but one of them involved bringing risk to other people instead of just herself. So he'd gotten mad and tried to kill her. It wasn't like she hadn't already known he was a killer. The only thing that had actually changed was that _Loki is a killer_ had gone from something distant and kind of abstract to something very up-close and personal. From a fact to an experience.

He relented then and pushed the door open; she ducked under his arm and went in, taking an immediate right down a short corridor that led to the far entrance to the galley, the one she'd rarely used. She pulled off ECW gear along the way, fumbling at it with her numb right hand, leaving Big Red on. She passed all the windows that had been so picturesque when the sun was still up – large windows with endless white, outbuildings, flags, and the ceremonial South Pole marker. Now it looked kind of creepy, a half-moon and red lights shining in the twilight. Jane thought briefly about some horror movie that had been made about the Pole, that everyone here made fun of but she still hadn't seen. She wondered if the villain or monster or whatever it was exactly measured up to Loki.

She didn't know why but she passed the dozen or so people sitting down, exchanging a few lackluster greetings, and went to the serving line to get dinner. She got vegetable polenta lasagna and a side of green beans with red peppers, nice and colorful. Loki followed her every step of the way, and out of the corner of her eye she could see him putting the same things on his plate. It occurred to her now why he never seemed satisfied with the food here, when everyone else, her included, was pretty impressed. _You probably had personal chefs whipping up whatever suited your fancy. I wonder what you did to them if they overcooked your steak…_ She stole a quick glance at him. Thor had been arrogant, but he'd never complained about the food. He'd loved Strawberry Pop-Tarts and pretty much anything else put in front of him. _You don't act anything like him. You don't even look anything like him, except for the height._

"Jane…?" Loki prompted. She'd stopped at the end of the service line and was staring at her tray, and he was growing worried. If she didn't snap out of it and start acting normal, others would notice, and the questions would start, and she would be unable to answer them.

She glanced up at him and lifted her tray; they made their way to one of the small round tables they'd sat at dozens of times before. She wasn't that hungry, and her stomach wasn't feeling all that settled, but somehow eating seemed very important. Maybe it was just to have something to do other than look at Loki, whose gaze she felt without seeing. When she tried to swallow a small bite of the polenta lasagna, though, she had to try three times before she could get it down. Maybe eating right now wasn't such a good idea after all. "Well, go ahead then. I can't wait to hear your explanation for trying to kill me," she said quietly.

Loki glanced around again. They'd taken a table which wasn't close to any occupied ones, but still it made him nervous to have this conversation here. He'd believed, though, that she would be unwilling to go anywhere else with him now. "I'll explain everything. But first allow me to heal your throat. Please."

"So you can assuage your guilty conscience?"

"You assume too much. You're experiencing discomfort which I accidentally caused, and I merely wish to remedy the situation."

_Accidentally. You accidentally wrapped your hands around my throat and squeezed until I almost passed out._

"If you'll just remove the towel," Loki said, putting great effort into remaining patient. It seemed no one could try his patience quite like Jane. No one since Thor, anyway, but Loki was trying hard not to think of her in that context, as Thor's…whatever. He wasn't supposed to be thinking about Thor at all. For his purposes now, she had nothing to do with Thor at all; it was merely coincidence even that she knew him.

Jane stared at her food as she thought. There was something fundamentally wrong about letting Loki fix the damage he himself had caused. But there was also something fundamentally wrong about risking her throat swelling shut and dying. For the first time it occurred to her that she could go to Club Med…but Club Med wasn't some walk-in clinic. If she went, there'd be questions, and she'd be required to give answers, because there'd also be reports. Reports that might be sent to SISI… Jane wondered then if Loki had some kind of control over the whole station's communications or just hers. Although she still hadn't decided that she should try again to contact someone, for she still feared what the result of that might be for everyone else at the station, the mere reminder that such a thing might still be possible – and after all, the Iridium phones were also still there, a 24/7 lifeline – gave her a spark of hope, and the hope buoyed her spirit, enough to interrupt the cycle of anger and fear.

She sat up a little straighter, set down her fork, and unbuttoned and unzipped Big Red. _What's he going to do? Finish the job? If he really wanted to do that he could have done it in my room or outside._ She looked him in the eye, then pulled the towel covering the ice baggie from her neck and set it on the chair between them.

Loki carefully schooled his expression as something highly unpleasant that he didn't want to dwell on curled in his stomach at the sight of his own red handprints encircling her neck. He focused instead on the task at hand, and stretched out his right hand toward her throat.

Jane watched the hand steadily, but her resolve failed when it got close.

"I don't need to touch, but it's delicate work. I need to be close," he explained.

"You don't have one of those magic rocks?" Jane asked, eyes flitting back and forth between him and his empty hand, now resting atop the table next to his untouched tray.

"'Magic rocks'?" Loki echoed with a mixture of confusion and distaste for the vague sound of an insult in her voice. But then he realized what she was talking about, and that she'd seen Thor use one on Erik Selvig in New Mexico. "You mean healing stones. And no, I'm afraid I forgot to pack a supply of them in my luggage when I left Asgard. But I don't need one. I just need…." He let the sentence hang, reaching again for her throat, and trying to make it look natural should anyone glance their way. He needed to concentrate on doing, not explaining. He didn't really know how to explain it to her anyway, though he knew she'd be interested. Jane was nothing if not curious.

Loki found the bruising under the skin that was just beginning to be visible and the excess fluid causing the swelling, and worked quickly but carefully to repair the damage and reverse them both; with his right hand so close to her skin she could feel its warmth, Jane summoned all her self-control to stay completely still. When everything felt as he thought it should – he had no particular knowledge of mortals' throats but they seemed to work the same as his – Loki withdrew his hand and looked closely at the red handprints around her neck. He ran his hand in a semi-circle around as much of her neck as was visible, further repairing the skin and the tiny blood vessels, and the marks were gone.

Loki sat back and relaxed a little; it was much easier to look at her now. He swallowed, then grimaced, then blinked in surprise. _Well. This is bad._ He'd assumed that healing Jane would heal his own throat as well. Apparently not.

Jane also swallowed and was surprised, but there was no grimace. "It…it worked," she stammered out, and her eyes widened as she realized her voice sounded normal now, too. She'd known it would work if he said it would – she'd seen Erik healed by Asgardian magic from something much worse – but she'd known that the same way she'd known Loki was dangerous at first. A fact. Now she'd experienced it herself. She took a deep breath, enjoyed the feeling of it rushing over an unconstricted larynx. It had tingled a little, when he did whatever exactly he did, but it hadn't hurt, and even the tingling was fading now.

Physically Jane was completely healed as far as she could tell. Emotionally the recovery of her courage was still incomplete. "So…you're awfully quiet for somebody who 'insisted' on explaining…this," she said with a motion of her right hand toward her throat. And all of a sudden, for the first time since her world started to fall apart, she was on the verge of tears. She dug fingernails into her leg hard enough to feel them through her jeans to stop herself, because she was _not_ going to let Loki see her cry. She was not going to fall apart in front of him.

Her breaths turned a little shaky again, and Loki again felt uncomfortable looking at her as her eyes grew shiny with unshed tears. His gaze dropped to her right hand. The fingers were still paler than normal, nearly white. It gave him something else to do while she got control of herself, or at least he hoped she would. He had no idea how to deal with a crying woman – mortal or otherwise. He had been known to mock on the rare occasions he'd found himself in such a situation, but he knew beyond doubt that he could not mock Jane for this, and not just because it would aggravate the setback in securing her continued assistance.

Jane felt her hand tingle and grow warm. She stared at it, at the pale fingers, and realized she'd forgotten about the frost bite that had started to set in, never consciously realizing that the fingers had not regained feeling. Until now. She looked up at Loki in surprise, and forgot she'd been fighting off tears.

"Better?"

"Yeah," Jane said after a moment, easily ignoring the instinct to be polite and say thanks. She noticed his voice still sounded a little husky, which she'd earlier attributed to his being outside without any cold weather gear protecting his head. She wondered if Asgardians got frost bite. _Serves you right if so._ The warmth on her hand felt really good, and she nervously moved it from the table to rest on her leg underneath it.

Loki steeled himself. No more procrastinating. _The performance of your life. The truth. Mostly._ "Did Thor tell you about the" – Loki paused, swallowed with difficulty – "restrictions on me when I was sent here?"

Jane thought back to that conversation in her hotel room in Tromso. She nodded. "He said his father…your father…put some kind of enchantments on you. He said you wouldn't be able to hurt anyone." She took a quick breath. "I guess he got that wrong."

Loki frowned. _Not my father. Not enchantments._ But therein lay the "mostly." Jane still needed to believe he was desperate to get back to his "family," that he wished to reconcile with them. "No, he didn't get it wrong. But he obviously didn't fully explain it. You… I lost my temper. I lashed out. It was a mistake, of course. I never meant to hurt you. I…" He paused to collect his thoughts. _Truth, _he thought with disgust_. Lies are infinitely better. Infinitely easier._ "I just wanted you to stop." _To stop talking._ And maybe, for a fraction of a second, to stop existing. He never would have taken it that far, though, he was confident. "But this enchantment" – singular, for he would not tell her more than he needed to – "if I harm a mortal, I experience the same injury. So when I put my hands…around your neck…I also felt hands around my own neck. I thought…I thought you…" _Curse the truth!_

Jane followed his halting sort-of-explanation as best she could. She'd never heard him speak in such broken phrases. By the time he reached the end, or at least the point where he paused for the longest, she was convinced this was his "I'm telling a lie so impossible to believe that I can't even say it properly" mode. "You're saying you thought I was choking you," Jane supplied in a flat voice that said "You're right, it's impossible to believe."

"Yes," he grated out over lips that barely parted. It was humiliating.

"I'm ready for the next version of your explanation now," Jane said with a sigh.

"I'm telling the truth," he said sharply, sitting forward. To admit to such a stupid mistake and have her not even believe him was salt in a wound. "If I'd wanted to kill you I would have. I thought you…you wouldn't let go of my throat. I would have let go of you as soon as you'd let go of me. But you never let go because…and then I realized that your hands were on mine, and if I was looking at them _there_ then they couldn't be around my neck. It was only then that I understood what was happening. It was the first time I experienced that, Jane. I haven't been going around hurting your people since coming back here." And oh, how good it felt to tell a small lie! To put some distance between himself and the harsh reality of the truth. The words flowed more smoothly and he struck just the right note of pleading for understanding, of vulnerability, of innocence. Jane did not know and had no way of finding out about the incident in Melfort.

Jane thought that over, in the meantime looking idly at his hands, the long slender fingers, the thumbs that had pressed into her throat. There was no sign of any broken skin or scratches or redness, but the slight throbbing in the fingers of her left hand – not in the right, the one he'd healed – reminded her that she'd scratched and clawed at his hands. She could swear she'd kicked him, too, but it had all happened so fast and she'd been in such a panic she couldn't be certain. If he really was telling the truth, then whatever she'd done had had so little effect on him he hadn't even noticed. "According to you, then, this thing, this enchantment kicks in when you're trying to kill someone, and stops you from killing them."

"No," Loki said, drawing in a deep breath meant to steady but instead only reminding him again of how swollen his _own_ throat apparently was. "It's not- I wasn't trying to kill you. I never wanted to hurt you at all."

"Then that's not the first time it's happened."

"I… What…" _She _can't_ know about the hockey game._

"You hurt my elbow. Yesterday. After the MCI drill." _And you didn't seem to think I was grabbing your elbow._

By the time Loki blinked he remembered. "That was entirely different. I- And yes, the reason I let go when I did was because I realized I was holding onto you too tightly. Because _I_ felt it as well. Do you need me to heal it?" His own elbow didn't hurt, but he hadn't inspected it for bruises yesterday, either.

"No. It's fine. Show me your throat."

His brows furrowed and his lips began to curl into a look of disgust and disdain at that – on Asgard demanding to be shown a throat was one way of ordering a defeated opponent to admit his defeat and submit – but he quickly realized what she was thinking. He hadn't tried to look at his throat when he'd gone to his room, and a dark green turtleneck sweater concealed it from view. Now he hooked his thumbs into the material and rolled and tugged it downward, at the same time stretching his neck upward. He watched as Jane's gaze settled there, and he knew exactly what she was seeing – the same thing he'd seen on her. He could almost feel Thor's hand behind his neck, roughly pulling his head back. Defeat. But _this_ was not _that. _This was just a tactic in a game, and he would never again submit to defeat at Thor's hands, or anyone else's.

Jane stared at his throat and reached out her hands as though to a magnet, and though Loki looked like he might literally start snarling, she placed her hands over the red handprints. They were much larger than hers – the size of _his _hands. Identical to what had been on her throat, she assumed – she hadn't looked, hadn't wanted to. She nodded and slipped her hands back under the table; Loki pulled up the cloth of his sweater and smoothed it.

"You felt everything I felt," she said.

"Yes."

"What did you feel?"

"What? You know what-"

"I'd like an answer," Jane said, courage slowly building again as she realized there might be something to this protective enchantment thing after all.

"I felt…anger. And pain. And weakness, at the end." _But mostly anger._ But he thought the other two answers might be more helpful...and while they were less palatable, they were not untrue. "Because you wouldn't take your hands off my throat. Or so I believed."

"I see. So it's my fault you almost killed me. And yourself, too, I guess."

"Of course not. That's not what I meant." Except of course it largely was. "It was Odin's fault, for putting these cu-" He stopped, glanced down at her neck. Where the marks of his own hands had been visible. "Fine. _My _fault. It was my fault. I overreacted." He paused again, swallowed, wondered if he'd be able to heal his neck the way he'd healed Jane's. "I apologize," he finally said. He even meant it. It _had_ been a mistake.

"It's supposed to teach you empathy, then."

_Empathy for mortals? Not likely._

"It's supposed to make you understand what the people you hurt here go through when you hurt them," Jane continued, still working it out in her own mind. "Were you afraid, when you thought I was choking you?"

"Of course not," he scoffed. "I knew I was stronger than you." It was true, but more importantly, Loki's pride would not allow him to answer any differently.

"Then it doesn't work." Loki tried to say something, but Jane was really tired of listening to him and his excuses and quite possibly the most reluctant, begrudging apology she'd ever heard in her life…as if a simple apology for an "overreaction" was sufficient to cover near-strangulation. "Oh, it may keep you from killing people, I guess, but a prison cell would do that just as well. I think it's supposed to teach you something, part of whatever it is you're really supposed to learn here. And I don't think it's working."

Loki looked away for a moment before responding. None of this was any of her business. As if _she_ were sitting in judgement over _him_, deciding what he should be taught and how well he was doing in his lessons. "I don't presume to know what Odin was thinking when he did this. And neither should you. What you're meant to teach me is your science. You _have_ taught me, and I've learned well. As for the rest…just tell me you understand. I couldn't hurt you if I wanted to, Jane, not without dire consequences to myself as well. And I don't. Want to hurt you, that is. I-"

"Until the next time you lose your temper."

"I will never lose my temper that way with you again. I swear it. It won't happen again."

"Because you know now what'll happen if it does."

"Not…not just because of that, but yes, if it makes…Jane?"

"What?"

He'd watched as her expression changed, her gaze drifted away, and her eyes grew unfocused. Her train of thought was clear. "It doesn't prevent me from defending myself, Jane. The All-Father was quite clear on that point. I won't suffer for killing someone who tries to kill me, including anyone you might wish to try to send for."

"Well. On that cheery note…" Jane looked down at her long-cold supper. At least she could swallow food now, but she still didn't think she could eat. She pushed her chair back and stood. "I'm going to turn in early. It's been a long day."

"I thought you said the first data would be ready tonight." Loki watched her with growing apprehension. He was out of arguments to ensure her continued cooperation.

Jane nodded. "It will be. I won't be. I'll see you in the morning." She turned her back to him and walked away with her tray, towel, and bag of melting ice. Her words and actions reflected more bravado than she actually felt, but with each unchallenged step she grew stronger. Loki hadn't learned empathy. But he _had_ learned – she hoped – that physically harming her wasn't worth the consequences. And that meant she was – she hoped – safe. Sort of. By the time she reached her room, she'd decided she felt safer than she ever had since she'd found out who her "assistant" really was.

And then she saw the stack of papers on the floor. The floor where she'd sprawled, gasping for air.

Loki was right. Nobody ever asked her to teach him empathy or make him grow a conscience. She remembered that morning they'd gone skiing, when she'd tried to broach the subject of friendship again and he'd rejected her, when she'd tried to tell herself that she couldn't fix everything. She reached down for the papers, carried them over to her desk and straightened them on it out of habit. She dropped them into the bottom drawer and closed it. _Maybe he can't be fixed._

She pulled her desk chair out and sat down, pressing her fingertips to her temple and rubbing. When she stopped, it was to examine the fingers of her right hand. There was no sign of damage at all – no discoloration, no tingling, no numbness, no pain. She wondered why he'd healed it. It wasn't like it was a life-threatening injury, it was minor. He certainly hadn't done it out of any form of guilt. He didn't seem to feel any more guilt about nearly choking the life right out of her than he did about the 1,227 deaths he was responsible for.

Her gaze fell back to the closed bottom drawer. She thought back to that moment just an hour or two ago when Loki had stormed into her room brandishing the papers she'd left on his desk. He'd been furious, offended in his own vengeful way. Maybe it was true that whatever was wrong with him couldn't be fixed. Maybe it was true that he hadn't learned empathy, or that he wasn't even capable of it. But it _wasn't_ true that he didn't have a conscience. A man with no conscience wouldn't have been bothered by the names of his victims, or the few dozen of their faces she'd pulled from a cable news website. A man with no conscience wouldn't care if he'd killed twenty or twenty thousand, and he wouldn't care whether they worked for SHIELD or were raising arms against him or not. And if he really believed those things, that he'd killed twenty armed soldiers and the rest was just some random property damage, then he was truly delusional. But she'd worked closely with him for nearly two months and he'd never seemed delusional. Angry and moody sometimes, yes, but not delusional. Not some crazed maniac._Wouldn't I have seen that?_ Jane asked herself, sifting through her memories of him, of Lucas. _If he isn't _really_ delusional…then what is he?_

Jane sighed and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. She was no psychologist; the closest she came was a handful of meetings with a child psychologist after her parents passed away.

_Complicated_, she thought in answer to her own question. _That's what he is._ Assuming all went well with the probe, and with the adjustments that would be needed to send a living person through Yggdrasil, she doubted she would have enough time to be able to figure him out. Jane laughed – and it wasn't an especially happy laugh but it felt _good_ after everything that had happened today. Assuming she was stuck here with him for the rest of her mortal life she didn't think she'd be able to figure him out. But one thing she knew: the next time he had a flare of conscience, she didn't want to be around.

Jane stood and took a look at the rest of her room. Her wardrobe was open, a shirt on the floor next to it, a few other articles of clothing pulled from her makeshift clothesline tossed on her bed. She'd never finished hanging it. So, after nearly being choked to death by Loki, after Loki following her out under the station and getting frostbite on her hand, after Loki healing her throat and her hand and showing her magical reciprocating injuries and warning her it wouldn't stop him from killing a few Avengers…Jane went back to hanging up her laundry.

Tonight she would shake off as much of what had happened today as she could. Tomorrow morning she would be right back by Loki's side. She wasn't sure how she would handle being alone with him again, the proximity of the hands whose physical marks were gone but whose other marks were much deeper. She wasn't looking forward to it, but she knew it was necessary.

Jane looked down at the clunky white bunny boots she hadn't yet taken off. Hardly ruby-red slippers, but still… "There's no place like Asgard," she whispered, clicking the heels together three times. Some tiny exceedingly irrational part of her thought it might actually work, after Loki's little demonstration of magic.

It didn't work, of course, and Jane rolled her eyes at herself, then went back to her laundry. Life had never before presented her with easy escapes from difficult situations; there was no reason it should start now. "But if you're listening, Heimdall," she said in another whisper, "anytime you want to bring me to Asgard, you go right ahead. I think I'd like to have a chat with Thor."

* * *

/

_First off, thanks for all your reviews on the last chapter, and the positive response! A lot of you wrote some really insightful things, too, which I enjoy so much. Actually I was reading back through older reviews today, and really I'm amazed at so many of things that were written, how beautiful and clever and almost like miniature character studies in and of themselves. And I thank you so much for reviewing, for reading even if you don't review, for favoriting and so forth, for sticking with it all this time!_

_I always respond to reviews, and for the last chapter I wound up trying to express a particular idea in a number of responses, and I think I only partially succeeded in saying what I wanted to. This part of a response to SylphJr is where I came closest to what I really wanted to say: _Loki's really stunned, in a way, that he did this. It puts an arrow in his self-image...which is already really confused and distorted. He embraces being a "monster" or villain on the one hand, but at the same time he doesn't *really* want to be a monster, or to be thought of as a monster. He embraces what he despises and rejects what he desires.

_If you're interested: (1) You can search "The stairs in the beercan at South Pole Station" (exactly that = first hit) and see a very short clip of someone walking down the Beer Can stairs. (2) You can search "Whiteout: The Making of the Trailer" (exactly that = first hit) for some Polies making a kind of dramedy video poking fun of the movie "Whiteout," the one Jane's thinking of in this chapter. One of the Polies there also told me they have a tradition of watching it and poking merciless fun at. I plan to watch it when this whole thing is over. Just FYI, the Polie video has "rated R" language. (The weird little bit with a cook being asked "do you want to buy a dog" I think comes from a requirement in the film competition is was made for.)_

_Without further delay, here's some previews for the next chapter: Thor's finally able to take a short rest; Asgard's leaders debate what to do about what's happened & Odin comes to a decision as an answer is revealed; Loki & Jane continue to deal with the aftermath of his attack, and his trend toward greater honesty continues; Jane, Loki, & YOU will find out exactly where the probe went.  
_

_And the excerpt (I was torn, I can also give you a Loki-POV excerpt if you want):_

"Is there no word on what caused the explosion? No enemy was found?" [Thor asked.]

It was First Einherjar Hergils who fielded the question. "No enemy was found anywhere in the palace. We searched three times. What disturbs me is that the magic shield surrounding the throne room was never breached."

Thor wrinkled his brow at that, for it made no sense. "There were only six of us able to come and go freely from the throne room. Four of us are in _this _room. None of us are traitors."


	40. (39) Answers

_This chapter is titled "Answers." Here are two for you, from questions in guest reviews. I normally don't do that in the chapter, but these I really felt I ought to. (1) Does Jane know Loki's adopted? No. I presume two things. First, Thor never followed up "He's adopted" (and don't get me started on that line) by "and he was born to blue people who grow ice from their palms," and second, in Western culture, generally speaking, being adopted is really not a big deal, so I figure of the things about Loki that trickled down to Jane (not much, her focus was on the interstellar travel stuff), this wasn't one of them. She hasn't had a ton of contact with the people who were in the room when Thor said that, anyway. Thor never told her because his family decided that this secret would be Loki's and Loki's alone to tell or not, I'm not sure which chapter this was in... (2) Why did no one ask Loki where he got that (British) English accent when he says he's from Canada? Where to begin. (Warning: Guest, please believe me, I rant not at you, but at one of the unavoidable conventions of the sci-fi genre.) WHY IS HE SPEAKING ENGLISH IN THE FIRST PLACE? LOL. Since there is no reasonable explanation for that (and I refuse to try to pretend there is), I basically 100% ignore the accent/language issue. But you are AWESOME for noticing it. OK *very short version of my rant* aside, I do have an in-story explanation for it (I have an explanation for everything, I think). In Ch. 27 "Fun," Jane made a crack about Loki not knowing an expression, and him being from Canada. And he said he knew the expression, but he was born in Canada and grew up all over. So, assuming Loki has even picked up on the fact that he "sounds English" (and...why...?), and he's asked about this, his answer would be: "My parents are from England, and I spent several years there in my childhood." _Loki_ has an explanation for everything, too._ _(Also, more recently I've heard of the "All-Tongue" thing in the comics - this is actually IMO quite a brilliant device. But I didn't know about it when I started this story, and I don't treat the comics as canon anyway, so no All-Tongue here. They just speak English because English is a Really Cool Language and all the cool aliens know it.)_

_Without further delay...I kinda like this chapter. I hope you do, too._

_/_

* * *

**Beneath**

**Chapter Thirty-Nine – Answers**

Thor sat at the end of one of the heavy oak benches in the chamber of the Healing Room used for relatively minor injuries. He had been here countless times before throughout his life, had relaxed around the crackling fire with his friends recuperating and laughing over whatever it was that had brought them here.

He wasn't relaxing now, even though his head kept threatening to fall back against the bench and drag him into sleep. And of his closest friends, only Sif was with him. Pressed close to his side, she leaned slightly forward, her head resting lightly in her hands, her elbows on her knees. Like him, she'd taken a severe blow to the head, but unlike him, her skull had actually fractured. Over the course of a day and a half of treatment it had been healed, along with her broken arm, but she was still feeling sick and weak and needed one final treatment before she could be released. Thor's head was pounding too, and there was nothing he could do for either of them.

When he went to the Healing Room after the last portal had finally been closed, Sif was the first one – the only one – he spotted. He'd breathed a sigh of relief then called to her; she'd run to him and embraced him. There hadn't been as much comfort in it as he'd expected, and he'd returned the embrace in a rather mechanical fashion. He was drained to the point of numbness.

The room was packed to the brim with warriors standing, sitting on benches or the floor, and some lying down. More stones were being prepared in the fire, and as wounds were treated with salve or fresh stone, healed warriors left while others walked or were carried in. The man next to Sif had given up his seat to Thor and refused to take it again when Thor said he didn't need it, so he'd relented and squeezed in. Fandral and Hogun, Sif said, had more complicated injuries and were in another area of the healing room. She had spoken with Hogun, but Fandral had still been unconscious when she'd been released to this room, and to avoid chaos in the crowded chambers visitors were forbidden except to those not expected to live. Sif hadn't known Jolgeir had been injured, and didn't know his status. She didn't know any more than he did about what had happened at the palace, and neither, it seemed, did anyone else in the room. She'd only been awake a few hours herself, but she'd already heard stories of the battles Asgard had fought while she slept. "There's nothing wrong with me, Thor. I swear to you, the only reason I feel sick is because I was flat on my back unconscious while Asgard was attacked from the city to the valleys to the forests to the mountains," she'd declared with a venomous expression, and that was when she'd folded over and let her head fall into her hands. She hadn't moved since.

Although it had hardly felt pleasurable to have a Ljosalf arrow pulled from his shin – it was worse than he'd initially thought, the broadhead arrow had scraped bone – the glittering dust of a healing stone had quickly chased away most of the pain, leaving only a dull ache and that annoying itching behind. The cuts on his left arm and right leg were too small to waste a stone on much less worry the exhausted and overstretched healers with; they would heal on their own in a day or two. Volstagg, he'd learned from someone else, had decided the same about his own wounds, whatever they were.

Just as Thor was on the verge of deciding his head would be fine without a healer – he'd come here more to check on his friends than for his own treatment, which he could have taken care of himself albeit with a bit less skill and a bit more pain – when he heard his name and title being called. He and Sif and probably everyone else in the room looked up to see two very young trainee healers entering the chamber. "Here," Thor called and the two bustled over, stepping carefully over the legs of those lying on the floor – a brown-haired boy in light silver armor over a green tunic, rectangular patches of light blue fabric over his shoulders, and a red-headed girl in a long loose-fitting brown dress with the same light blue rectangles over her shoulders.

"The All-Father has sent word that you should go to the Ambassadorial Estates," the boy said.

"_After_ you're done here," the girl said, making her way behind the bench while the boy stood in front.

"How old are you?" Thor asked, wrenching his head away from the boy who tried to grasp it and still looked to be in his youth.

"Nineteen. But I completed my studies. Or close enough."

"I'm twenty," the girl said.

The boy reached for his head again and pulled it down firmly, while the girl leaned over him and ran her fingers through his hair and over his head.

"Nineteen," Thor muttered. _Practically a child._ Not that he'd felt that way about himself when _he_ was that age.

"I'm old enough," the boy said from above his head. "My best friend is nineteen, and he was out there fighting. Where I should have been."

"What is his name?" Thor demanded, pushing his head up and interrupting the girl's work. But the boy clamped his mouth shut. No one under twenty was supposed to be engaging in battle. Thor frowned and dropped his head again. There was no use in pursuing this; he had more important things to deal with than whether some youth was raising a sword in Asgard's defense a few months earlier than he should be. The girl went back to work and whatever she was doing was bringing back that awful itching sensation.

"Check his vision," the girl said, picking her way back around the bench.

The boy told him to look left and right, up and down, and Thor did it, though it made him feel like a child, especially with this youth directing him to do it. The boy looked positively surly, his resentment of his duties almost palpable. "So why _are_ you here, when you want to be out there?"

"Thor, let it go," Sif said from beside him.

"Because I happen to have a knack for healing magic. So I was informed I could either sit in my classes with hardly any teachers or work here."

Whether it was the green tunic, the discontent, or simply Thor's nostalgia for the brother of his youth who should've been out fighting with him these last two days, the boy reminded him of Loki, and Thor couldn't let it go. "How many have you treated here?"

The boy unfurled a sturdy piece of parchment stitched into a band of cloth over his left wrist and passed his hand over it. The girl meanwhile released his head and moved over to Sif. "Four hundred and twenty three, including you," he answered, bending down to examine Thor's leg. He pressed a hand against the healed arrow wound, and a second later the last of the pain disappeared there. He stood up again.

Thor met his eyes. "Out there you would be one. In here you are four hundred and twenty three."

The boy stared at him, frozen. The surliness was still there, but he seemed to be thinking about what Thor had said, and that would have to be good enough.

"What's your name?"

"I apologize, Lady Sif, I'm not qualified to treat your head injury. You'll have to wait until one of the trained healers can come," the girl said while the boy stood there silently.

Sif sighed and grumbled something that Thor didn't catch, waiting as he was for the boy to answer.

"Fridulf Hjalmarson," he answered, reluctantly enough that Thor guessed he wouldn't have if Thor weren't his crown prince.

Thor nodded and Fridulf and the girl began making their way through the room.

"I'm going with you," Sif said, standing up when Thor did.

"It's a meeting, Sif, not a battle. Rest, heal. The war isn't over. Only the opening salvo. We'll need you."

She set her jaw, but in the end did not argue. "Fine. Just don't let me miss it again. Drag me out there unconscious if you must. I'll wake up when someone swings a sword at me."

Thor squeezed her shoulder and smiled. She was speaking in hyperbole of course, but he understood exactly what she meant. She was lying in bed while Asgard's warriors fell, and there was nothing she could have done about it.

He left Sif and the trainees and the chamber crowded with the wounded and headed out, surprised to see the sun rising already. Some two and a half days, then, it had been since the explosion in the palace and the opening of the first portals. The streets were quiet; after leaving the vicinity of the Healing Room Thor passed no one other than sentries at their posts. He nodded to them and hurried past, until he came to the circular-walled housing and recreational complex known as the Ambassadorial Estates. He paused at the entrance; the Einherjar on duty directed him to the first floor of Midgard's chambers. None of the chambers were occupied, of course – they were only ever used for high-level visiting delegations anyway – but Midgard's chambers had never been occupied in the history of the building, so it was a logical space to commandeer away from the palace.

"They had an incredible advantage. Why didn't they press it?" someone was asking. Thor entered the chambers and observed what was clearly a heated discussion in which no one was using the chairs at the long narrow table that had been brought into the room. No one even noticed his presence for a moment other than the four Einherjar whose eyes had flitted toward him as he'd approached the chambers, in what was, for Einherjar, a sign of nervousness. Thor's eyes went directly to his father and examined him as carefully as he could; he could find no sign of injury or even fatigue in him. His face was grim but radiated strength and determination. A small scorch mark on the left shoulder of his armor made Thor wonder if the All-Father had once again led his warriors in battle. It worried him, and the worry led to a somewhat unsettling realization – he'd always thought of his father as invincible, but no one was, he was coming to understand now.

"Their advantage was temporary," Volstagg said. "Once our men returned to their positions, we made short work of them."

"You exaggerate, Volstagg," Tyr responded sharply. "The battles were fierce and we took heavy losses. It's true that by the end, their rate of loss was as great as ours, greater even. That does not change the fact that we are vastly outnumbered. All they need do is open more portals, send more warriors. They can continue the attacks longer than we can sustain the defense against them. We _must_ go on the offensive," he said, slamming a fist into a palm.

"_You_ exaggerate, Tyr," Bragi put in. "Every single one of our warriors is highly trained and many have experienced hard-fought battles before. The Vanir, to name but one example, do not train all of their men to be warriors. Their farmers have strong backs and know how to use the scythe and the pitchfork, but they have little skill with warcraft."

Tyr, Senior Strategy Advisor and retired commander, shook his head. "One skilled Aesir with a sword, a battle-ax, and a mace on his person against a thousand untrained Vanir with scythes is one dead Aesir. You _fought _in the Vanir-Aesir War, did you not, Bragi? We made a truce with them in the end because a victory would have cost us so much as to be little different from defeat."

"But at that time, they-"

"I agree a war somewhere else is infinitely better than a war here," the public welfare advisor said quickly, trying to stem the argument. "Supplies Advisor Geirmund has told us that many of our fields have been trampled to oblivion and our people would soon face hunger had we not harvested early. But where should we attack? _Seven realms._ They'll all be well-defended, and we must still maintain defense _here_ against the other six."

Murmurs and grumbles from the twenty or so men in the room followed, but before anyone else could speak up, Odin was saying his name, and Thor stepped the rest of the way into the room. The men greeted him warmly, hands clasped his shoulder, and the group opened for him to join.

"Mother?" Thor asked, although he knew he shouldn't in these circumstances. But he hadn't seen her in days.

Odin merely nodded in acknowledgement, but there was no sign of worry in him. "We're waiting for a report from our engineers. The rubble has been cleared away, and we will soon learn if the central structure is safe. The private wing was undamaged."

Thor nodded in reply and, with that last pointed piece of information, was finally satisfied that his mother was unharmed. "Is there no word on what caused the explosion? No enemy was found?"

It was First Einherjar Hergils who fielded the question. "No enemy was found anywhere in the palace. We searched three times. What disturbs me is that the magic shield surrounding the throne room was never breached."

Thor wrinkled his brow at that, for it made no sense. "There were only six of us able to come and go freely from the throne room. Four of us are in _this_ room. None of us are traitors."

"Six of us had free passage," Hergils said with a nod. "Many more had access. Court's clerks, Einherjar, servants. A cleaning woman was among the dead."

"Any of these people permitted inside would have been highly trusted. I myself let none in but one clerk who has served my father for centuries, and my four most trusted friends, including Volstagg, until afterward."

"It was likely none of them who attacked the palace," came a woman's voice, just entering the room. It was Maeva Mordidottir, the woman who'd put up the protections in the first place. Thor watched her with a sudden glint of suspicion. Six had free passage, plus one who had created the shield and was the only person able to remove it. Thor knew her but not well, not anymore; she'd once been a friend of Loki's. "Friend" was a vastly oversimplified term – they'd had a stormy relationship that had ranged from friendly to adversarial to what Loki used to call with a sly smile "very friendly."

"Who then?" he asked, watching her carefully. Maeva was flanked by two men and two women – Thor recognized one of them as an engineer – but she was clearly the leader among them.

"I can't tell you that, my prince. What I _can_ tell you is that there is no doubt the explosion was produced through magic, and that the means to implement it was in place _before_ I shielded the throne room. Creating magic that powerful would have triggered an alarm that was part of the shield, and neither the alarm nor the shield itself was tampered with. The only person in all the Nine Realms who could have done this _after_ the shield was in place, in fact, is me. Assuming of course that you are willing to take my word that I _didn't_ do this, only one option remains: someone planned for this and had this magic in place before the shield was up, before we reached the deadline. This person would have to be highly skilled, to keep such magic so well hidden. I never noticed it when I was planning and creating the shield…but I confess, I was not searching for such a thing, either."

Maeva fell silent, and her left hand came to rest on the dagger she wore sheathed at her waist. A moment of silence was shattered by a sudden cacophony of questions and demands and accusations, and somewhere among all the raised voices Thor heard Loki's name over his own shouted questions. His narrowed eyes scanned the room to try to identify the man who'd said his brother's name amidst words like _treachery_ and _betrayal_ and _cowardice_ and _dishonor_.

Silence returned when Gungnir struck the floor. "Where was the blast centered?" Odin asked.

The man Thor recognized as a senior engineer, to the left of Maeva, stepped forward. "Based on both the pattern of damage and the residual energy disturbance, it originated near your study, All-Father."

"Inside or out?"

"Impossible to say. Very near the wall between the study and the throne room. Possibly in the wall itself."

Thor ignored the engineer and watched his father. In the past he'd paid little attention to Odin's moods or expressions, for he'd hardly considered him to have any – outside the rare occasions when he allowed himself to relax and enjoy himself with his family or friends – seeing him as almost a monolith. In the aftermath of Loki's loss at the bifrost, however, he'd begun to realize how much he'd missed. He wondered how many others saw what he now saw, or if he was the only one to miss such things all along – the little lines around his father's eyes, the slight lowering of his eyelid, the press of his lips. Odin was furious.

"Is the structure sound?" Odin asked, no hint of anger in his voice.

"The ceiling is unstable over the throne room, but it and the walls of the adjacent rooms are being shored up now. In another day it'll be safe to use, but it'll take longer to have it looking as it should."

Odin gave a slight nod. "Tyr, Hergils, Bragi, Maeva, Thor, Volstagg. Remain a while longer. The rest of you, go. We'll meet again in the Feasting Hall at midday."

As the others filed out, Thor turned his attention back to Maeva Mordidottir. She was not a warrior, but she almost looked the part. She wore a lavender tunic-dress with brown leggings, protective brown leather pieces worked into the garb, and over her chest mail armor that looked so delicate it should be useless – he suspected she'd enchanted it, because she wasn't the type to wear it for decoration. Her long reddish-blond hair was in a practical braid down her back.

Odin turned his attention to her as well. "Is there any other foreign magic?"

She shook her head. "I've checked thoroughly for it in the throne room and adjacent rooms. I'll inspect your chambers next, with your permission, All-Father."

"You have it from me. Obtain it from the queen as well before you begin. After our midday meeting."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Tyr, you will prepare at least three strategies for an attack against Vanaheim, and present them tonight before dinner to me, and to Thor. We will then present one or more of them to the council after dinner, and consider our course."

"Vanaheim, Your Majesty?" Tyr asked. "I had thought Svartalfheim. Or perhaps Alfheim, to convince them to leave this alliance. Alfheim is less well-defended, and-"

"Vanaheim, Tyr. Thor, explain why."

Thor blinked in surprise as five men's and one woman's eyes all fell on him. "Gullveig's public message. He seeks to incite rebellion among our people."

"Not only that."

He lowered his head to think, to escape some of the weight of everyone's gaze. He enjoyed attention, even basked in it, but not like this, not when asked to somehow divine his father's war strategy. He thought back to what Maeva had said; something in it had angered his father. And then he knew. "It was Gullveig. Before the truce was broken, when we were still in talks, Gullveig came here as an ambassador of his people. He flaunted our trust and good faith. The entire time the three of us were speaking, his chief of security was with him, standing against the wall. The wall between your study and the throne room."

"But this is…this is _treachery_," Bragi said.

"And cowardice," Volstagg said. "This is not the way wars are meant to be fought."

Tyr nodded. "We have an uncooperative enemy."

"A dishonorable enemy," Hergils added angrily. "He came here under a banner of peace and we permitted him access to our inner sanctum."

"It shows that they fear us," Thor said, his voice a low rumble. He thought of the Vanir warrior whose life he'd spared out of a sense of honor and gripped Mjolnir tighter. He was probably being given food and a bed now, when Thor had not seen a bed in so many days he'd lost count, and the same could be said of each man in the room.

"Perhaps," Odin responded, in a voice that Thor had come to learn meant he didn't entirely agree. "For now, go, rest for a while if you can. We reconvene at noon. Thor, join me. We'll call on your mother."

Thor nodded. "Father, there's still the matter of shifts for the warriors."

Odin sighed; he'd forgotten. "Volstagg, see to it. Work with Hergils."

"Of course, Your Majesty," Volstagg said with a bow and salute.

"All-Father…" Hergils began, haltingly, "There's one thing I…I must do first. I need to appoint a new chief palace Einherjar."

Odin nodded as Thor spoke up. "Is Jolgeir…"

"He still lives. But…he cannot resume his duties."

Thor stood frozen, feeling very small, until his father urged him on.

/

* * *

/

Loki intended to sleep. Complete oblivion in fact would have been most welcome. But it didn't come. Instead he laid in bed with Jane's angry accusations his constant irritating companion.

"_Heartless monster." I am all that and more. _He wondered how long it would take them all to freeze to death if he destroyed all their power generators. He would find it extremely unpleasant himself – _how ironic!_ – but the cold wouldn't kill him, not if hunger and thirst and lack of air hadn't. _Perhaps I would fall into some form of hibernation. The LokiSleep,_ he thought with a dark, quiet laugh. _Perhaps that wouldn't be so terrible, if it were temporary. And the panic and chaos that would come before…_ He pictured Jane's accusing eyes. The frostbite on her fingers spreading upward, her limbs frozen and dying. It was an ugly image. Her eyes still accused.

_She has no right to such sanctimony. To be so quick to judge. So quick to assign guilt._ _I _am_ guilty. Guilty of existing._ He thought back to those papers, Jane's little lesson for her student. _One thousand two hundred and whatever. Ridiculous. A few in that New Mexico facility. A few in SHIELD's flying monstrosity. A few in New York. And they were all necessary. Casualties of war. And one thousand, on this planet of seven billion, even if it were true – a tiny blip. And _babies_, _he thought with disgust. _There were no babies. That is a _lie_. I would never do such a thing. No baby deserves…_

An image of himself as a baby flashed before his mind's eye. His mother had shown it to him once, from her own memories, when he'd asked about it as a youth. Chubby, pale, bald, happy. Happily living a lie. He hadn't looked like that when he was born, though. _I must have been repulsive. The hideous offspring of hideous murderous monsters. Heartless monsters. How easily, how _quickly _Laufey leapt at the chance to slay Odin. Not honorably, in battle, but cowardly, treacherously, while he lay defenseless in a Sleep far deeper than sleep. Yet Odin saw such a _thing_, that fiend's _son_, and took it in._

"_You're my son."_ Loki remembered the words with the taste of bile at the back of his throat. _There can be no more malicious jest in the entire cosmos. Taken for a purpose. Rejected – not good enough even to be a pawn, a vassal under your thumb? You should have known you were getting substandard goods. _He laughed out loud. _Worse than that. Even the Frost Giants saw no future in me. No wonder I never lived up to your plans. I was a reject from the moment I was born. I was never supposed to live._ Loki laughed again, louder, longer. The kind of laugh others might hear and think him mad. "It _is_ all your fault, _Father._ Had you not interfered with your enemies' intentions, had you not taken me for your grand schemes, one thousand two hundred and whatever Midgardians would still be alive." No one could hear his words, but as always when he addressed Odin since learning the truth, he _wished_ the words could be heard. He wished for Odin to hear them, to be cut by their sharpness, to be burnt by the hatred in them.

_Babies_, Loki thought with no less disgust than before. He thought back to the destruction he'd wrought on Jotunheim. There, he realized, he might have killed babies. Then he had to correct himself, for of course he'd killed babies. The built-up energy of the bifrost had destroyed indiscriminately, it would have destroyed the land, the ice, whatever it was, from underneath their feet. But this did not concern him. He knew what they would grow up to be. The rest of the realms were better off without them. _They_ were better off not growing into their destiny.

_No regrets,_ he told himself. _No guilt._

Loki swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up. He touched the tips of his fingers together and quickly drew them apart, a mirror appearing and growing between them. He grasped it in his left hand and with his right spun up particles he now thought of by Midgardian names. In the resulting light he examined his neck. Bruising in the shape of his own hands was becoming evident there, and his throat still felt tight.

_This_ was the work of a monster, he thought. Not who he thought he'd been all his life. He'd sworn to her just one day earlier – it seemed like so much longer – that he wouldn't hurt her. And he was being sincere. He needed her. But it wasn't just that. It wasn't _just_ that. He'd come to respect her. He could even admire her courage in the face of someone who'd nearly killed her in anger. _Or laugh at her for her foolishness,_ he thought, although no laughter came now.

A moment later he laughed after all. He hadn't sworn not to hurt her, he remembered. He'd sworn he had no _desire_ to hurt her. And Loki had always been comfortable in the gray between the absolutes, had learned to choose his words carefully to allow himself that gray.

He looked back at himself in the mirror he'd forgotten about and realized he felt no more comfortable than he had before. He closed his eyes and tried to clear his mind. It worked, for a while at least, so he brought a hand to his throat to try to reduce the swelling. He breathed a sigh of relief – a deep one. It worked.

/

* * *

/

Jane woke up Friday morning, April 2, having slept, but poorly. It had taken her a while to fall asleep, and she'd woken several times during the night, twice with some kind of vague anxiety dream in which she couldn't breathe and she woke gasping. She got dressed and steeled herself for another day with Loki, reminding herself again and again that he couldn't hurt her without hurting himself the same way. And while he might not shed any tears over her death, she was pretty sure he didn't have a death-wish himself.

He didn't knock on her door, for which she was grateful; instead she found him eating oatmeal in the galley. She got a fresh croissant and a double espresso and sat down across from him. Trying to avoid or ignore him was pretty pointless. She wasn't in much of a mood for polite small talk with him, though, so she sat in silence. Loki, it seemed, felt no need for small talk either, though in her peripheral vision she thought she saw him start to speak a couple of times.

Austin stopped by their table to invite them to an informal concert that night; Jane gave a noncommittal reply for them both. The brief interaction reminded Jane of the normal flow of life at the South Pole and the other people who inhabited it and were continuing about their work and social life in oblivion. It reminded her of Selby. Her stomach dropped and she knew it showed on her face, but Loki remained silent. The last time she'd exchanged more than a bare "hello" with him she'd been ranting at him like – in retrospect – a madwoman, convinced he was here to spy on her and simply lacking the guts to admit it. _Selby_, who she'd started out thinking might become her closest friend here, because they had so much in common. Her eyes darted up quickly toward Loki's, but he was staring at his oatmeal. _Loki meant what he said. All this time, he's been doing everything he can to keep me focused on getting him back to Asgard. Even doing his best to make sure I didn't make any friends here… But how did he know Selby knew about SHIELD? He must have overheard us talking at some point…_ A day or two ago it would have made her furious. Wrecking a budding friendship seemed pretty trivial next to near-strangulation, though. Now she realized he could've just killed Selby. _Maybe he wanted to but knew he couldn't. _Jane quickly rejected that idea._ He likes to think he doesn't kill innocent people…_

"Shall we go?" Jane asked with a forced smile when it seemed both of them were done. A few minutes later they were suiting up and heading out.

"You're feeling well?" Loki asked in a voice almost bare of inflection, keeping his gaze fixed on the jamesway they'd commandeered and were now approaching. It was easier than when he'd been facing her.

"Uh, yeah," Jane said after a moment's hesitation.

They walked the rest of the way in silence.

As the computer whirred to life, Jane felt some of the old excitement return. The first file she opened was the one that should have taken a whole series of different data readings and roughly plotted where the Pathfinder probe had wound up. Instead an error message popped up.

"What does that mean, 'Unresolved'?" Loki asked, watching at Jane's side, taking care not to touch her even glancingly.

"Well…I guess it means wherever the probe went is beyond the stars we've charted. It's not that surprising, really. We think there are some two or three hundred billion stars in the Milky Way alone. Our galaxy."

"I _know_ what the Milky Way is, Jane. I've been a good student."

She bit back a retort. "Then you know that the Milky Way is only one of who knows how many galaxies, and we've only mapped a tiny fraction of its stars. So, okay, the probe went somewhere beyond what we've mapped. Let's check out the imagery."

Loki nodded and watched anxiously as she navigated through the files the analysis programs had created. He hadn't held much hope for the utility of learning the physical location of the probe in some kind of three-dimensional coordinates. It would mean nothing to him; he wouldn't recognize Asgard by a series of numbers determined relative to Midgard's location. He knew Asgard as Yggdrasil's crown, and the other realms by their metaphorical locations relative to Yggdrasil. No one on Asgard cared a whit about whatever barren uninhabited rock happened to be physically closest.

"Woah," Jane said. "That's not what I expected."

Loki stared at the smears of color, bits of blue and red and yellow mixed into purples and oranges and large swaths of black. No shape or even pattern was identifiable. "What did you expect?" he asked with a frown. He wasn't sure exactly what _he'd_ expected, either, but when she'd said "imagery" he'd expected something that looked like an actual image.

"The camera takes infrared images. But it was intended for seriously long-distance imagery. I think we're looking at…well, the equivalent of a close-up."

"Of what?" Loki asked, beginning to wonder pessimistically what the point of any of this was.

"I don't know. But I've got an image processor program on here that'll smooth this out and hopefully convert it into something more useful."

"But it'll still just be these…these colors. Infrared images. Distinguishing hot from cold. You could have mentioned that in the beginning."

"A Canon point-and-shoot doesn't exactly work out in space, Lucas." Jane froze for a second. Then drew in a slow, deep breath. "Loki. But don't you see? This tells us something important. A _close-up._ That means there was something close. The probe didn't travel just anywhere. It traveled somewhere with features of different temperatures, and it was relatively close to those features."

"You think it reached one of the other realms," he said with a slow nod.

"It's kind of jumping to a conclusion…but yeah, I do."

"How long will this program take?"

"Half an hour? Maybe an hour. I haven't used it for anything quite like this before." _No time like the present_, she thought, and started the program running on the four images the probe had returned.

Jane pulled up file after file, most of them meaningless to Loki, either because the data reflected some aspect of Midgard's science that he hadn't learned, or because he didn't see how knowing that particular bit of data – such as the frequency of a set of light waves – was supposed to help them figure out whether the probe had made it to Asgard, or one of the other realms. He realized that without his help – _his_ help, not Lucas's – she would've had no hope of determining the probe's destination. She would've had to have been satisfied with knowing whether it reached a habitable environment. And it did appear to be habitable.

The atmosphere was similar to Earth's. Jane grew excited over that one, but it meant little to Loki. The atmosphere was fine in each of the Nine Realms – at least for the hardy inhabitants of eight of them – if not entirely enjoyable on Muspelheim. No one worried about percentages of specific molecules in the air.

The temperature was 17 degrees Celsius, or 62 in the Fahrenheit system he was more familiar with from its frequent use in conversation at the South Pole. That told him something useful. It ruled out Muspelheim and, more importantly, Jotunheim, which brought him more relief than he would care to admit. _Although,_ he thought with a short bittersweet laugh at himself, _at least_ _Jotunheim would probably feel refreshingly warm right now._

"What?"

Loki turned to look at Jane.

"You were laughing."

He frowned, looked back at the computer. There was no reason to keep it from her, he supposed. "The temperature narrows it down to six realms. It's too cold for Muspelheim and too warm for Jotunheim."

"Jotunheim…" Jane tried to remember what Thor had told her about it, when they spoke in New Zealand. It was the realm he'd said was angry with Asgard because of something Thor did – something that had gotten him banished to Earth – but the people who lived there, the Frost Giants, had no means to do anything about it.

"Yes, Jotunheim. The realm I destroyed," Loki said nonchalantly, turning a deliberately casual gaze her way.

Jane stared at him, and several seconds passed before she realized her jaw had fallen open and clamped it shut.

"What, _he_ didn't tell you? I'm surprised. He was rather upset about it at the time."

Jane shook her head, more to clear up her own thoughts than in response to Loki. "_He_ said he did something stupid that started a war between Jotunheim and Asgard. He never said you had anything to do with it, or anything about _destroying_ Jotunheim."

Loki turned back to the computer, though there was nothing new on its screen. These were strange words. _Thor taking responsibility for his actions? Does he weep now over each Frost Giant life he took? Amazing. Pitiful. And irrelevant._ "Well, I suppose I wasn't as successful as I'd hoped, then," he finally said, partly to needle Jane but largely out of utter sincerity.

With a shudder Jane sat back in her chair. "You know, Loki…you're good at a lot of things, I'm sure. But convincing people they're safe around you really isn't one of them."

"You have nothing to fear. You aren't a Frost Giant," he said flatly.

"You noticed that, huh?"

Loki's eyes swept quickly over Jane's petite form and gave a short laugh, with a smile that showed a bit more in his eyes than on his lips.

"Why did you want to destroy them?" The words were short, quick, easy. But she had just asked Loki why he wanted to destroy a whole planet full of people, no differently than if she'd asked why he'd worn a white dress shirt today. She hoped she wasn't on dangerous ground.

Loki took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Thor really never told you about them?"

"No. Just what I told you, and that they have no way to reach Asgard although they might be looking for one."

"They're frightful, despicable creatures."

Jane watched as Loki spoke, staring straight ahead with unfocused eyes and a malevolent expression. He looked fearsome, but she wasn't afraid. The malevolence clearly wasn't directed at her.

"And big, I'm guessing?"

"Big. Hideous. Skin that doesn't look quite like skin. They barely clothe themselves, it's almost as though they were clothed in living ice. They live on a frozen wasteland of a planet. Like summer here, perhaps. They can make ice spring from their own bodies, daggers and swords of sheer ice, and they freeze anything they touch. They're deceitful and traitorous and…and they deserve to die."

Jane's face had gone to a pained grimace by the end. They sounded like some kind of mythic version of the Abominable Snowman. And Loki clearly hated them; if she doubted his words she need only look at his face, or the taut rigidity in his posture, or his tight grip on the edge of the table they stood at. But Thor hadn't spoken of them that way. He seemed regretful of whatever mistake it was that he'd made there that led to hostilities. And regardless, Loki hadn't actually answered her question. _Unless Loki thinking you're unattractive and dishonest and have freaky talents with ice is really enough to get you on the top of his worthy-of-destruction list. _But Jane figured she should quit while she was ahead and try to bring the tension down a few hundred notches. "What do they eat?"

He stared at her in confusion, no idea what she was talking about.

"You said it's a frozen wasteland. Like summer here. We can't grow food here and no animals can survive here, even in summer. What do they eat?"

Loki fixed her with a dismissive scowl. "I have no idea. Perhaps they chew on ice. Perhaps they're cannibals."

"_So_ glad I asked," Jane said with another grimace. She was just wondering if she should venture to ask about Muspelheim, and whether he had anything against those people or had perhaps tried to destroy them lately, when a tab at the top of the screen started flashing and caught her eye. _Probably for the best,_ she thought, and opened the tab.

The image she saw now was largely blue, with a few patches of warmer colors near the top. She clicked to the next image. Still a wide expanse of blue across the bottom third, yellowy green in a patch in the center, bits of yellows and oranges in patches above the blue, a burst of red in the upper left quadrant. _Clouds. Or maybe a river,_ she thought, looking at the blue. _It would help to know what kind of angle this was taken from…_ She was about to click forward to the third of the four images when a long thin finger touched the screen, in the middle of the blue part.

For Loki, it had snapped into place almost the second he saw this image.

Jane looked at him expectantly, eyebrows raised.

"This is the Grand Falls."

She glanced between him and the computer screen, noting both his suddenly wistful expression and tone of voice, and the likelihood that he was referring to a waterfall, and that yes, a waterfall was a logical source for that swath of blue, if the camera was directly facing it.

"This is the broken bifrost," he said, pointing to the yellowy-green. "This," he said, pointing to one of the vaguely triangular bits of deeper orange above, "is the royal palace."

Loki sat back, brought his hand away from the screen. He didn't know exactly what he was feeling – too many things at once, many of them unwelcome – but it made him tremble slightly, every nerve in his body alive with…something. Anticipation, anger, longing, hate, need, fascination with this odd rendering of the place he'd spent almost his entire life, desperate urgency to leave Midgard for bigger and better things.

"I'm still waiting for you to say it."

Loki glanced over at Jane; he'd forgotten she was there. He saw no reason not to indulge her. To indulge _himself._ "This is Asgard."

* * *

/

_Previews for Chapter 40: Loki & Jane navigate working together after the incident in her room; Jane insists on a safety feature but doesn't tell Loki precisely the real reason why; Jane gets another taste of magic and notices something she hasn't before; Odin provides input into the other realms' strategy; Thor provides an insight of his own; Frigga loves her sons - both of them._

_And excerpt:_

_Thor's brother._ In the real world, it could have been fun. There was still so much she didn't know about Thor, and here she'd had two whole months with his brother. She could have found out the good, the bad, the ugly, and the utterly humiliating and infinitely tease-worthy. But Loki wasn't exactly Don's brother Jim-the-orthodontist. Her gaze drifted down to his hands again. Loki wasn't the kind of guy you asked about embarrassing childhood stories and then shared a good laugh with.

_Except maybe…_


	41. (40) Strategies

_Those of you who like the All-Tongue idea, BTW, feel free to keep that as head-canon in this story - I won't be addressing it ever, so whatever theory works for you is A-OK!_

/

* * *

**Beneath**

**Chapter Forty – Strategies**

Another argument was brewing. It was inevitable, really, Jane supposed. She still wasn't entirely sure of how she should act around Loki, but arguing with Lucas was familiar ground, and this was little different. The only _real_ difference was that she'd thought sometimes that Lucas might lose his temper and start shouting and ranting, while with Loki there was the risk he might lose his temper and…anything could happen. Strangely, though, his temper appeared more under control than it had been when he'd been pretending to be Lucas. In fact he seemed positively subdued as she made her case again.

"It's not that simple. You _have_ to have some means of controlling the recall."

"I think putting it under my boot and crushing it will control it quite well. Or you can simply disable it, can you not? We made it work; we can make it not work," Loki said, trying not to dwell on the memory that came to mind of the last time he'd tried to take care of a problem by stepping on it. His right food twinged, making it even more difficult.

"But what if there's a problem? What if… You don't know what you'd be walking into. Maybe…maybe Yggdrasil sent the probe to Asgard _this_ time. What if _next _time it sends it…it sends _you_ somewhere else? Jotunheim, with the scantily-clad ice people. Or the hot one, Muspelheim. Or one of the others."

"It will take me to Asgard every time," Loki insisted, shaking his head a bit at her naïve trivialization of Frost Giants. It was of course his own fault for telling her about them. He shouldn't have done so, but it had felt good to say it aloud, like a release on a pressure valve. "And if for some strange reason it doesn't, it will still count as having completed my task. I know other means of travel from the other realms to Asgard." _Except Muspelheim, that would be a problem. Or Helheim,_ he thought. But it was immaterial. He now had no doubt whatsoever that Yggdrasil would send him to Asgard.

"But…it's just…" Jane didn't know what else to say. Thor had told her he feared Asgard could be headed for war. That Asgard and Jotunheim were technically already at war. That the people on Jotunheim couldn't travel to Asgard, but the people on Svartalfheim might be willing to help them do it. At least that was as much as she could remember. She hesitated to tell Loki, though. What if he decided not to go? Jane definitely wanted him to go, but she didn't want him to set foot on Asgard, realize later he'd landed in a mass of angry Frost Giants, and have no way to escape because he'd crushed or ditched the transmitter that linked back to Pathfinder. She wanted him to go, but she didn't want him to get sliced and diced into a million Bad Guy pieces with ice swords. _He _might be heartless, but she wasn't. He'd been sent here to learn something. Not to get killed.

"What is it, Jane?" Loki, asked, watching her carefully. "Can it be that you're concerned for my safety?" He backed off from the sarcasm in the question then, in the face of her scowl and clear discomfort that told him that yes, for some reason, somehow, she _was_ concerned, though perhaps not exactly for him. "Don't be. I'll be fine. I'm going home, after all," he finished, turning back to the laptop monitor, where a portion of the code for the structural integrity field was displayed.

"You don't sound very excited about going home," Jane said quietly.

"I…it's complicated," he said, not looking up. Some lies were too audacious even for Loki, who had stood before Laufey's throne and offered up Odin's life and the Ice Casket, who had embraced his mother and looked her in the eye and told her he'd make the Frost Giants pay for what they'd done. He couldn't stand before Jane – or anyone else – and speak of some desperate need to be home in the loving arms of his family. Not now. Besides, he'd already spoken the truth, when he'd told her about _Lucas's_ family. The lie would never stand up to that truth. But he needed her to support his return to Asgard instead of discovering some moral compunction to try to stop it. He needed her to think there _was _a family in Asgard waiting for him with open arms. The truth, in that case, wouldn't do.

"No."

"What do you mean, 'no'?" Loki asked, turning toward her again, wondering if he'd somehow asked a question and forgotten it.

"You don't get to do that anymore. You want my help, you answer my questions."

Loki drew in a breath and began to harness his anger to show in his face, to display the look that had made men shiver – that had made Jane shiver, once – but it had no more impact this time than the last. He pressed his lips together tightly. _This_ time it had had no impact because he hadn't even managed to get the look fully in place. He sighed and turned back to the laptop again, scrolling down to see the next section of programming, much of which remained indecipherable to him. "If you think I'm going to submit to your interrogation, ask your friends at SHIELD how far _they_ got with that."

"It's hardly an interrogation," Jane said, then wondered what he was talking about, then wondered, if there _had_ been an interrogation – and surely there had been – just how far SHIELD had gotten, and how much effort they'd put into getting there.

"Call it what you like. Listen," he cut in before she could speak. "You work on reprogramming the structural integrity field. I'll piece together a short-range radio frequency on-off switch for the transmitter. We can program Pathfinder to make periodic attempts at a recall, and so long as the transmitter is turned off, no recall will happen. In an emergency the switch can be turned on, and the recall will happen. Does that satisfy you?"

Jane thought it over and found herself nodding. "It's simple. I like it. Can you do that?"

Loki gave her a withering look.

"Fine, fine, all right. Did you seriously never have a single class in astronomy before this? In physics? Mechanical engineering?"

"I studied astronomy. But not the way you did. I didn't need to study physics. I _experienced_ physics. As for mechanical engineering…I've always liked to know how things work."

Jane shook her head at him. "So you just…how did you learn all this? I mean, I could tell there were some weird gaps in what you knew, but…I never doubted you were a doctoral student."

"I bought a book when we were in Christchurch," he said.

"You…bought a book."

"I bought a book. It was a little elementary, more of an introduction to basic concepts in your understanding of astronomy and physics. I also read articles on the internet, and I listened to everything you said."

Jane gave a short laugh. "Could've fooled me."

Loki covered what began to be a smile with a frown and reached down for Jane's backpack, pulling out the thick black notebook. He looked around for a pen and, not finding one, reached into the air and one appeared in his fingers. He opened up the notebook to the first empty page.

"Wait, how…was that some trick? Or did you…did you just…uh…conjure up a pen out of thin air?" Jane asked, staring at the pen in his right hand. It looked exactly like the kind the Science Lab stocked as basic office supplies.

"Some would call it a trick," Loki said, trying to keep the bitterness from his voice. He took the black cap off the pen and stuck it onto the end. "I suppose it's a matter of perspective."

"What would _you_ call it?"

He glanced up at her. It had been a very long time since anyone had asked. "I…I would say I changed its structure. I try to keep one with me at all times here, and I changed its structure so I could."

"In what way? You made it…weightless? Invisible? You had to have created a weak electrical field. Or magnetic? You changed light frequencies and relative atomic mass and weight? But how can you do that? Or…you created a tiny vacuum, and-"

"Jane," Loki said in a slightly raised voice, then quickly lowered it again. "You're a good teacher. I'm not. I'm not going to try to explain such things to you." He turned back to the notebook and began sketching out a design for an on-off switch to control the transmitter. She seemed far more comfortable around him than he would have expected after what happened, and he'd made it a point to appear entirely non-threatening, to never show a hint of anger, to never make an unexpected move toward her.

But that didn't mean he had any illusions about what they were to each other. That didn't mean he'd forgotten the moment of absolute horror when he'd realized he'd nearly choked her to death while she tried in vain with weak mortal hands to pry his much stronger ones from her neck. The terror in her eyes. Her anger when she'd struck him with her palm and wagged a finger in his face. He understood what that was. He understood what it was to have the tatters of one's dignity ground into dust, to be pushed too far and be compelled to take rash and potentially unwise action to try to recover it. _She still detests me, as she should, and I…I am still what I am. There's no need to discuss anything more than what is necessary._ Besides, she had it half figured out anyway.

Jane bit back the questions she still wanted to ask; she could put together a theory of the physics of carrying around a tethered invisible pen, but couldn't conceive of how he actually did it. Light waves could be manipulated with machines. _How is _he_ doing it? Abra-cadabra? Can he touch and bend light waves the way he touches that pen? And…why doesn't he just carry one in his bag like a normal person?_ She furrowed her brow, realizing she'd never actually seen him take anything out from that black leather satchel hanging from his neck and tucked under one arm, or put anything in it either. _Maybe it's a fashion statement,_ she thought with a mental shrug and only a smidgen of sarcasm. _He _does_ seem to care about style. Nobody else here has on a white button-down shirt and silk pants._

She watched him sketch steady straight strokes in her notebook in the partially heated jamesway and was reminded of another time in another place, another Asgardian hand sketching a shape in her notebook on a chilly night. Thor had spoken to her of magic that night, but she hadn't seen him do anything magical – _except for his smile, that was pretty magical_ – until his hammer had come flying out of the sky into his hand. Probably he'd lost the ability when he'd been made mortal, she figured, but then realized she'd never seen him do anything like what Loki just did, even afterward. "Can Thor do that?" she suddenly asked, and kind of regretted it. He hadn't reacted well the one other time she'd asked him something about Thor.

Loki looked up from the notebook, startled. "Do what?" He glanced down briefly at his nearly-finished sketch, a rendering of the schematics for the switch he was going to create to placate Jane. "Draw? I suppose. It's been a millennium or so since I've seen him do it."

Jane narrowed her eyes at him, remembering with a weird sense of déjà-vu a time when she would have given him – Lucas – a light friendly nudge to the shoulder for saying something like that. Not that Lucas had ever said anything quite like that. _A millennium_. She supposed he meant childhood. "I meant what you did with the pen. 'Change its structure.'"

"Of course," Loki said immediately, then went back to his sketching.

Jane's eyebrows went up. She wished he would have shown her. But she supposed on Asgard everyone could do things like that, and it would occur to Thor to demonstrate it about as much as it would occur to her to say, "Here, let me show you how cool my opposable thumbs are."

"However, he would go about it in a different manner. Rather more destructive. More permanent."

Jane stared at Loki, still engrossed in his work. At first she wasn't sure how to take what he'd said, but then she realized the tone of voice was exactly the same as the one she'd come to identify with Lucas's dry, sardonic sense of humor. This was Loki telling a joke. Sort of. And now she recognized, with the help of what little bit of insight Thor had given her, an undercurrent of hostility to it. _"He said he felt like he was in my shadow." _"So you're saying…there might be a hammer involved?"

Loki looked up at Jane in surprise again. At times he'd thought her entirely predictable. At other times he thought he didn't understand her at all. She was no warrior, this tiny woman beside him, and she'd confronted her own mortality just a day ago, at his hands, literally. And now a co-conspirator in a jest at Thor's expense? He didn't even understand why _he'd_ said what he said. It was an old habit, one best left in the past where it belonged. "There might be," he finally said, lips twisted faintly into something that didn't quite manage to be either smile or frown.

"Sooo…_not_ everybody in Asgard can do what you can do?"

"Some can…but I am…unique, in many ways."

His cold tone and gaze told her that follow-up questions would _not_ be appreciated. There was something ominous in it, too, real or imagined, Jane wasn't sure, but if he was joking before he definitely wasn't now. She wondered if on Asgard "unique" had a negative connotation like "special" had come to have in the US, because he certainly didn't seem happy about it. She shivered and stood, circling around the table they were using as a desk until it was between her and Loki.

In his peripheral vision Loki watched her do it, watched her remember just who she'd been sharing a laugh with. He couldn't let that continue, that lapse in the distance between them. A certain amount of openness _was_ needed now. Openness was a means of assuring her of her safety after his error, just as a clearly displayed open palm made an enemy relax at least a fraction. But there had to be limits to it. Boundaries. Whenever he'd relaxed the boundaries even a little, she'd reached into him and pulled things out that he kept tightly sealed.

Jane wondered if he really did think she'd been a good teacher as she watched him complete the sketch and begin writing in a narrow column, which she presumed to be a list of the parts he'd need. It was the exact same process they'd gone through when they'd realized – when _Jane_ had realized – they would need more probes, or more specifically, more transmitters to test. _It really shouldn't be like this, _she thought, her eyes drawn to his hands. If someone had tried to choke her out in the real world – not Loki who needed her help to leave, not at the South Pole where escape or even blending into a crowd and going unnoticed wasn't possible, not indoors anyway – that would've been it. The end. _Hasta la vista, baby._ But she _was_ at the South Pole. And he _was_ Loki. Thor's brother.

She pursed her lips, letting that thought really percolate for the first time, beginning with really _looking_ at him for the first time. He leaned his slender frame slightly over the desk, left hand over the left side of the notebook, holding it in place, right hand writing in neat printed letters and occasionally pausing to tap the pen against the paper while he thought. His straight black hair was longer now than when she'd first met him, and somewhat ruffled from pulling off his balaclava; one section of it fell over his forehead, partially obscuring his sharp, pale features. Most of the men here grew beards, making them look even more the outdoorsmen that many of them really were, but Loki had no hint of facial hair. Jane had never even seen him with a five-o'clock shadow. She saw nothing of Thor in him at all; in some ways they appeared almost like opposites_._

_Thor's brother._ In the real world, it could have been fun. There was still so much she didn't know about Thor, and here she'd had two whole months with his brother. She could have found out the good, the bad, the ugly, and the utterly humiliating and infinitely tease-worthy. But Loki wasn't exactly Don's brother Jim-the-orthodontist. Her gaze drifted down to his hands again. Loki wasn't the kind of guy you asked about embarrassing childhood stories and then shared a good laugh with.

_Except maybe…_

He paused, eyes scanning his list.

"So, uh, Thor told me he's not much older than you. Why did he carry you all the time, when you were a baby? Or does 'not much older' in Asgardian terms mean a few decades or something?" Jane asked, and when Loki looked up at her, his expression reminded her of the look he wore when looking at an entrée from the galley that he found particularly distasteful.

"What are you-"

"You said-"

"I know what I said. I was angry."

"Yeah, I think we've established that."

Loki frowned, and with effort kept his eyes locked on hers. "_You_ said you didn't care about who I was then. You were right not to care. It was another lifetime. I didn't know who I was. I know now. Here. Does this look acceptable?" He handed her the notebook.

Jane took it, and after a few seconds gave up and allowed herself to be maneuvered away from her question. She looked over his sketch and his list, nodding. It was efficient, elegant even. She couldn't see any way to improve his design. A short-range RF switch wasn't that complicated, really, but she was still impressed. She'd learned the skills to design and build her own equipment from watching Erik indulge his hobby in his garage, and then through trial and error over a period of years. Loki had somehow picked it up in a few weeks. "A+," she said, handing it back to him. "Uh, top marks?" she added when he looked at her with confusion.

"Ah," Loki said with a nod. "As I said, you're a good teacher. I'll get to work on this now. I'm sure I can finish by the end of the day. And you?"

"Um, well…I told you, software isn't really my thing. But I don't have to do this from scratch, I just have to isolate the segments we have to adjust, deal with any cascade effects from _those _changes…I don't _think_ anything on the generator itself will have to be physically modified…maybe the modulator…we'll have to run some stress simulations but I still have the programs for those from when we ran them in New Mexico… It shouldn't take that long, if we don't run into any problems. Maybe two or three days?"

Loki gritted his teeth and took a steadying breath. _Two or three days to rewrite a few lines of code?_

"I'm guessing you'd prefer to make it there alive, right?" Jane asked, his impatience both obvious and familiar.

"That would be my preference, yes," he said with a curt nod. "If you explain what needs to be done I'll help you when I finish the switch." He set the notebook down and started pulling his ECW gear on to begin his next round of Treasure Hunt.

"Wait, you don't need the list?" Jane asked. She didn't particularly want him walking off with her notebook, but she supposed she could rip out the page he'd written it on.

He shook his head. "I'll remember." He pushed the door open and stepped outside, and as cold as it was out here, it couldn't come too soon. _Two or three days. Then no more tests, no more delays._ It couldn't come too soon.

/

* * *

/

"You've been to the Healing Room?" Odin asked as he and Thor walked down the barely recognizable street toward the palace. No battle had been fought in this location, but it was filthy from the thousands of warriors and horses that had plied its length for the past two and a half days, especially in the hours after the explosion. Dirt and blood and manure and unidentifiable random bits of litter entirely masked the street's usual luster. Either the cleaning system had been overwhelmed, or no one had bothered to turn it on.

Thor took a deep breath and his head began to pound again – he suspected it was nothing more than exhaustion, but the smell from beneath his feet and the bright early morning sunlight weren't helping either. "I did. I'm fine. It wasn't serious." He glanced at his father, and though he was now much closer, he still saw no cause for concern, so he did not ask after his health. For a father to ask after his son was one thing. For Thor to ask after Odin All-Father…he felt it would be an insult. He came at it another way instead. "Did you fight, Father?"

Odin nodded, his eyes fixed on the wide porticos ahead of them, the public entrance to the palace. "My throne no longer exists. The time for diplomacy was past." He paused as they turned to the right down another street, heading toward the main entrance to the private wing. "Did you hear that Muspelheim sent women among its warriors?"

"I did. I fought them." Another deep breath. More pounding. "I thought of Sif."

Odin chuckled. "I thought of your mother."

Thor squinted his eyes at his father; the sun was now shining almost directly behind his head and it was difficult to look directly at him. "I'm not sure how to take that."

"Frigga speaks with a soft voice, touches with a gentle hand, and stands quietly by my side. That is all by her deliberate choice, Son. When she's angry, she could be mistaken for a Fire Giantess herself. She would be very angry indeed if I let Asgard fall because I refused to raise a sword to a woman."

Odin was chuckling again, and Thor supposed there was something humorous in it somewhere, but he remembered the woman he'd killed before turning his attention to the portal, and picturing his mother looking like that seemed a grave offense. He tried to forget about it, figuring he was simply too tired to appreciate a jest.

They took two lefts, entered the palace, and began climbing the stairs to the top floor. "Do you believe Gullveig was telling the truth, that he never intended to kill us? Why take such a shameful action and then fail to take full advantage of it?" Thor asked.

"He was telling the truth. It's no coincidence that the explosion happened the first minute all three of us were absent from the throne room since their deadline expired. And the strategy is the same as with the simultaneous attacks through the portals. But let's wait to discuss it with your mother."

Thor nodded. He hadn't processed much of what Odin said anyway. He stole a glance at him and marveled that the old man had more spring in his step than he himself did. He supposed that was due to the effect of his recent Sleep. It was said that during the Ice War he had once gone two whole months without sleep, fighting almost constantly, after three days of Odinsleep. Thor had never questioned those stories, growing up. He couldn't imagine it now. On the other hand, he hadn't felt tired himself until he sat down in the Healing Room.

When they finally reached the top, Thor was reconsidering his unspoken opinion that Tony and SHIELD were lazy for their use of mechanical elevators instead of stairs. Jane he excused from this because she was Jane, and not one of her realm's warriors.

There were four guards in the corridor, where normally only one or at most two stood watch. The one closest to the engraved double doors, Radvald Smidurson, another Einherjar Thor had known all his life, bowed and opened it in perfect timing for their passage.

Frigga was waiting in the antechamber, legs tucked under her on a settee, staring at a book she wasn't reading. She was up by the time the door fully opened, her arms around Thor before it fully closed. Thor embraced her and let her fuss over him, giving a small tired laugh as she unfailingly found and inspected every single now-healed wound, first noticing the blood in his hair and then the bloodied rips in his clothing. She turned her attention next to Odin, and Thor collapsed onto the settee beside her abandoned book.

"Thor, up from there! Have you looked at yourself in a mirror? I'll have to have the fabric replaced. And look at what you're tracking in on your boots, both of you! Up, up up! And don't touch anything until you've had a bath. Now! Go!"

Thor pushed himself back up halfway through and began to trudge back to the bathroom that had been his and Loki's when they were children. He could have fallen asleep on that settee, and wouldn't have cared at all about the mess he made of it. Replacing a few yards of fabric wasn't exactly an onerous task. But he was hardly in a mood to argue. He shuddered as an image of his mother in dark red skin and breathing fire came to mind. It was followed by an equally unsettling image of his brother in rough blue skin and growling at him.

"I can't control what happens beyond the walls of these chambers, Odin. But I can and I will control what happens within them," she said as Thor left the room; he couldn't hear his father's murmured reply.

_When did everything turn so upside down?_ Thor wondered as he took a deep breath and dipped beneath the surface of intentionally cold bathwater. _My coronation,_ he thought as he came back up after scrubbing hard at his head. _Why did I ever think I was ready? Why did I ever think it would be so easy?_

When he'd been very young, he and Loki had been given baths together in this same tub, made much shallower then. They'd laughed and splashed water at each other and over the edge and in general made getting them clean as difficult on their mother or their nursemaids as they could. Thor glanced around him; the bathroom was largely the same, the scale of everything in it having simply adjusted to his and Loki's height as they grew. The whole room was haunted with memories of long-ago childhood, of innocence, of things that now seemed impossibly distant.

He hurried with his bath, made easier because the water was so cold it verged on painful, then toweled off and left the room as quickly as he could. On the dresser right outside the door in the attached bedchambers a fresh set of clothing had been laid out for him. This room had changed considerably over the centuries, and bore little resemblance to the room that he had shared with Loki for the first decade or so of his life. The two smaller beds on either side of the room were long gone, replaced with a larger single bed in the middle.

Unpleasant as the bath had been, Thor was wide awake now, clean, and his mother wouldn't scold him for sitting on her furniture. He made his way back out to the antechamber and found both his parents in the comfortable sitting room just down the hallway. It was as though he'd entered another realm: his mother's, he supposed. Just hours ago he'd been surrounded by the sounds of bones breaking and men shouting and the sight and smell of blood and death. Now he walked through the finery of his parents' chambers in soft leather slippers with fur lining the top and he knew he'd best not rest them on the low table in front of the sofa. "I almost feel like I dreamt it all," he said as he sank into the soft cushions.

"You didn't," Odin said curtly, back in gleaming armor and clean boots, and Thor wondered if he shouldn't have said that, if his father thought him impertinent. He kept silent while his father caught his mother up on all that had happened.

"This isn't going to be another Ice War," Frigga said when he was done.

"Not at all," Odin agreed. "Warriors met on battlefields then and fought to the best of their strength and skill."

"We have done that here as well," Thor said, the words stinging. Other than the initial reluctance to fight Muspelheim's female warriors, he hadn't seen anyone not fighting to the best of his strength and skill.

"Only for a short time. The other realms continued fighting, continued reinforcing, only while they held an advantage. They sought to shock with swift brutality, to create and maintain the illusion that they control the battlefield, all of the battlefields, that they control even our palace. They seek to cast a shadow larger than themselves, to make us see the futility of our defense. To cause our people to lose hope. To frighten us into capitulating."

"I saw no frightened Aesir."

"You saw two and a half days of battle," Odin said, gesturing angrily with Gungnir. "This is a _strategy_, Thor. It's only the beginning. Gullveig remembers the Aesir-Vanir War as well as I do. He remembers the losses, the despair on both sides as more and more of our men went to war and did not return, as our crops were destroyed and our livestock died. He doesn't want that for his people, but he doesn't want it for Asgard, either. What good is a decaying realm of rubble to him? None at all. An Asgard defeated after years of war is no longer Asgard. He and his allies will do everything in his power to make Asgard relent. To make relenting seem less painful, more acceptable. To make the people _demand_ it."

"Gullveig's public message," Thor said with a nod, the pieces beginning to fit. "He was trying to paint you as a tyrant and himself as a benevolent ruler who asks for little in return for peace. But our people will never turn on you, Father. It won't work."

"Don't you see, it's _already_ begun to work. You heard my advisors."

Thor's face fell in shock. The idea wasn't fully congealed yet through the exhaustion, but it was almost there. Close enough to know what his father was referring to. He glanced at his mother, who had remained silent but listened intently to everything they said. "Loki. One of them suspects Loki had something to do with the explosion at the palace." He heard Frigga draw in a breath but resisted looking her way again. "We know who did that now, though. Gullveig's man. Tofison…Haladur Tofison."

"It's difficult to keep control of facts during wartime," Frigga put in softly.

"Two of them voiced suspicion. And if two said it aloud, more were thinking it. And this from my own advisors, who _know_ that Loki's on Midgard and that the enchantments I placed on him would make it essentially impossible for him to do something like this. If Loki is somehow complicit in the attacks on us, how difficult would it be to hand him over?"

"But there's…there's no sense in that. If he were cooperating with our enemies, they wouldn't _need_ us to hand him over. They'd already have him!" Thor bellowed, leaving the comfort of the sofa to stand before his father.

"It doesn't have to make sense! It's war!" Odin shouted back.

"Sit. Both of you," Frigga said, her voice tense, her fingers grasping each other tightly.

"It doesn't have to make sense, Thor. It only has to plant doubt. There will be murmurs against Loki," Odin said, his voice back at his normal quiet volume. "Making him a gift to Jotunheim was what some of them wanted in the first place. Is it so difficult to believe they could seek it again? He is an easy target. And of all the realms, which one would actually be justified in seeking to attack us, and has it done so? There will be murmurs that Jotunheim is not truly our enemy anymore, less so than the others, and that we should return the Ice Casket."

Thor followed his father's lead and took a seat again, his gaze wandering to the side as he considered that. He hadn't known the Frost Giants hadn't attacked. He hadn't seen any, but he hadn't fought at the site of every portal. He shook his head. Aesir had despised Jotuns for over a millennium, and hadn't been fond of them before that. He couldn't imagine that changing so quickly simply because the Frost Giants were probably too busy fighting each other in their own civil war to send any here to fight Aesir.

"Then only the tesseract remains. To move it from one realm's safekeeping to seven realms' safekeeping. A very small price to pay," Odin said with a somber smile.

"Well I don't _trust_ their safekeeping, and I don't _believe_ their 'small prices.' They are poachers on our land, trying to steal what is not theirs. I know you don't trust them, Father. No one else will, either. Our men will fight."

"Of course our men will fight. But Gullveig will seek to break their spirits before their bodies. You've only known victory and peace. During the Vanir-Aesir War there were four assassination attempts against me, and-."

"And we won't be discussing that," Frigga cut in sharply.

A heavy blanket of silence fell over the room. Thor recognized that there was much he didn't know, that his father's experience of war vastly outstripped his own. But he couldn't fathom that the Aesir would ever be swayed by petty attempts to get them to lie down and accept Asgard being pilfered. Aesir men had battle in their blood. He glanced at his mother, remembered that she'd slain a Frost Giant herself not so long ago; Aesir women, too, would stand and fight rather than permit such a thing. He thought of the Aesir-Vanir War, of attempts on his father's life – the first he'd heard of this – and of how it had ended without true victory. He thought of the more recent Ice War, and its very different conclusion.

"Father…perhaps there's more to it. When you took the Ice Casket from Jotunheim, it was with Gungnir at Laufey's throat. Would they _ever_ have willingly given it up had Laufey still stood? If you could have gotten him in that position at the beginning of the war instead of years later, wouldn't you have? _That _might have brought it to a swift conclusion. Laufey's sons" – and here Thor stumbled for a moment – "they were not yet even born. There was no one ready to step in for him."

Odin and Frigga exchanged a look. "Yes, that's correct," he said.

"The explosion in the throne room…whatever enchantment was placed there…that was Gullveig's sword at your throat. We had breakfast in your study that morning, the three of us," Thor said, glancing between his parents. "Why play games? If you're willing to stoop so low, why try to make a point when you can destroy the entire line of succession in one dishonorable blow?"

"Loki is still in the line of succession," Frigga pointed out with a frown; Odin shot her an impatient look.

"Loki isn't here, and we still don't know where he is," Thor said, keeping his tone even. "And if we found him, would his taking the throne again stabilize Asgard?" And much as Thor wished Loki _was_ here, he didn't want to imagine what his brother might do if given the throne under such circumstances.

"Asgard could have fallen into chaos, with or without Loki here," Frigga whispered, a shiver running up her spine as she remembered the quiet, tense breakfast they'd shared that morning.

"For one who discards his scruples, that could be a simpler means of shortening a war," Odin said with a nod.

Thor still could not envisage Asgard's defeat, but he had by now accepted it as something at least theoretically possible, and he nodded as well. "Seven realms against an Asgard without a leader. And yet they didn't do it. How much greater would our losses have been over the last few days had they done so?"

"Go on," Odin said.

"Father, we have Vanir among us who do not wish to fight their fellow Vanir, a few from other realms who feel the same, and who still support us but choose to serve in other capacities. They support us because they know we didn't seek this war. It _must_ be the same on Vanaheim. Aesir who refuse to support Vanaheim. Surely there are even Vanir who don't support this effort against us. You have long sought to maintain peace between all the realms. Hardly anyone has spoken an ill word against you in my lifetime."

At this an eyebrow on Odin's stone-like face rose almost imperceptibly toward his hairline; Thor did not fail to see it. _Present company excepted,_ he understood the reaction to say.

Thor swallowed and continued. "Killing an enemy king on a battlefield is one thing. Slaughtering one who is respected throughout the realms, along with his family, in some display of magic, without even showing your face – that is something entirely different."

No one immediately responded; Odin's intense gaze remained steadily on him, and Frigga, who was sitting beside Thor, stared down at her hands.

It was Frigga who finally spoke. "You believe that Gullveig wishes to incite rebellion here because he fears it at home?"

_Is that what I said?_ Thor thought everything over again, difficult through the haziness of his lack of sleep, and nodded. It was far more eloquent and clear than anything he'd said, clearer even than anything he'd _thought_, but yes, that was exactly what he meant. It had come to mind vague and incomplete, with a crystal clear image of something he'd never seen but had imagined countless times as a boy – his father standing in triumph over the Frost Giant king, holding Gungnir to his throat – and the terribly ineloquent thought that _going after the king usually _is _how it's done._ "Yes," he said.

Odin stood. His stern expression was unchanged, but his heart was beating faster. "You have identified a weakness. Frigga, see that your son gets a few hours of sleep. Join me in the Feasting Hall for lunch. I'm going to find Bragi."

Once his father left, his mother patted his knee and stood. "Do you want to use your old bedchamber?"

"It's closer," Thor said with a nod, hauling himself to his feet.

She hooked her arm through his and walked him back toward the room that had once been filled with boisterous shouts and laughter in the day and whispered secrets in the night. "I'm sorry I shouted at you earlier," she said, resting her head against his shoulder. It was hard to believe now that he'd once fit in the crook of her arm.

"I'm sorry I tracked mud into your chambers."

"That's not all you tracked in."

"Yes, well…I'm sorry for that, too," he said with a laugh.

They reached the door and turned to face each other; Frigga took Thor's face between her hands and drew him downward a bit so she could kiss his forehead. "You gave your father more hope than he's had in weeks. Thank you."

Thor wasn't sure he'd done that, but he smiled anyway, tired enough to take his mother's word for it, too tired to think any further about it.

"Get some sleep, my child. And don't get that look. You can fight in a thousand wars and you'll always be my child. Both of you."

Thor sighed, relenting easily, embraced his mother whose eyes had begun to grow moist, and entered the room. Sleep came easily, even in this haunted place.

* * *

/

_So I put up another story, _Moving to Alfheim_, recently. You can find the link on my profile page if you want to check it out. It will have three chapters, perhaps with a fourth as an epilogue. Two are up as of April 5, and the rest is kind of sketched out, I just have to fill it out and prettify it. It's more of my "I need young Loki & Thor fluff to keep my sanity" stuff, though my fluff is never purely fluff._

_As for _Beneath_, big changes are coming...not far off now._

_In the meantime, here are some previews from Chapter 41 (maybe I'll call it "Race"):_ _Thor gets another summons from Midgard, and feels Loki's betrayal get way more personal; Jane asks Wright about that picture she asked him to delete; Loki struggles to maintain his focus._

_And the excerpt:_

Thor turned away from the group, realizing now that the Einherjar was coming straight toward him. He missed whatever idea Sif was proposing, a rather more serious one judging from her tone of voice, as the guard reached his side and leaned in, speaking in a lowered voice meant only for him. "Prince Thor, Heimdall has sent me. Your friend has contacted him and requests your presence."

Thor's brow drew together with worry. Now was not a good time. On the other hand, it was possible that for a long time to come, "now" would not be a good time. "Wait here a moment. I need to speak to my father."


	42. (41) Images

**Beneath**

**Chapter Forty-One – Images**

Mead – more common at the evening table than the midday one – flowed freely as the first tales from the recent battles were told in the Feasting Hall of Asgard's palace. Thor found himself drifting in and out of the shouts and raucous laughter; attitudes had shifted since the meeting at the Ambassadorial Estates, at least temporarily, aided by sleep and drink. It was history in the making, he thought. Bragi, chuckling across from him, had composed his Ice Saga over meals much like this one, and he and Loki and all other Asgardian children since had had to memorize it. _Will Volstagg grow his verses into a saga, and will my sons, and daughters, memorize it when they study this war?_ He glanced around the room. _And how many of these men will be here for it? _he wondered, some of the words of the poem Volstagg was creating drifting through his thoughts. Already some had fallen. Sif had been able to join them, but Fandral and Hogun were still in the Healing Room. They were expected to recover. Others were lost forever.

Mead flowed freely, but the Aesir constitution was strong, and no one was drinking to excess. A meeting would be held as soon as the table was cleared, and a horn could sound at any second.

Observance of the enemy's tactics and discussion of what appeared to be their strategy and what may be their – or more specifically Gullveig's – weakness, aided also by sleep and some would swear by drink, fueled expansive discussion and debate that lasted for hours. There was general if reluctant consensus that if the enemy was going to get "creative" with their tactics and strategy, then Asgard would have to do so as well, although Asgard would have to find ways of doing it within the bounds of honor. Thor couldn't help noticing that the "bounds of honor" were taking on something of an elastic nature.

"The Fire Giants sent us their women. We shall send them Sif to beat them into submission, Maeva to magic them into submission, and my mother-in-law to nag them into submission!" one of the younger advisors from the far end of the table shouted.

Thor stole a glance at his father, whose lips had pulled into a smile, and took that as his permission to laugh heartily. Sif and Maeva symbolically raised empty tankards toward each other as an Einherjar approached the group. "I've met your mother-in-law, Bosi," Thor said. "We won't need Sif and Maeva."

The table roared in laughter, a welcome release from the seriousness of the preceding hours.

Thor turned away from the group, realizing now that the Einherjar was coming straight toward him. He missed whatever idea Sif was proposing, a rather more serious one judging from her tone of voice, as the guard reached his side and leaned in, speaking in a lowered voice meant only for him. "Prince Thor, Heimdall has sent me. Your friend has contacted him and requests your presence."

Thor's brow drew together with worry. Now was not a good time. On the other hand, it was possible that for a long time to come, "now" would not be a good time. "Wait here a moment. I need to speak to my father."

"There may be word of Loki," he whispered after going to his father's side at the head of the table, feeling eyes on him even as whoever was now speaking continued. "Should I go now?"

"When discussion devolves into sending Bosi's mother-in-law to fight the Fire Giants, I think it's safe for you to depart," Odin said, his eye still sweeping the table, his ears still following the conversation. "Be back at the Ambassadorial Estates in three hours. I want you there for Tyr's presentation."

Thor nodded and returned to the Einherjar, hovering several feet away from the table. "Where must I go?"

"Heimdall has brought the tesseract back out to the wooden observatory."

"What do you know of Jolgeir?" Thor asked him after retrieving Mjolnir from where he'd left it at the entrance to the Feasting Hall.

"Only that he's seriously injured, my prince," the man accompanying him said. "I…I've heard rumors that he's lost the use of his arms."

Thor nodded, keeping up a brisk pace, for three hours with Tony was like half an hour with anyone else. This rumor gave him hope, though. Damage to limbs could usually be repaired. If the damage was severe it could take time, but the Aesir were a sturdy people, and their healers were skilled.

As they neared the observatory beside the still-dead bifrost, Thor heard his name being called and turned. Geirmund, the newly appointed supplies advisor, was approaching at a run, another Einherjar at his side per the edict that no one travel outside alone. Thor waited for him impatiently, while the guard who had walked with him backed away a respectful distance.

"Geirmund," Thor said in curt greeting.

"Prince Thor, if you do not object, the All-Father has permitted me to join you, so that I may separately discuss the potential for trade with your Midgardian friends."

Thor thought it over quickly. Geirmund didn't know why he was going to Midgard; the search for Loki, even the fact that Loki's location was unknown, was still a secret. Only Hogun, Heimdall, and Thor's family knew the truth. Thor wasn't sure how this would work, but if his father had approved it, he supposed somehow it would. "All right," he agreed. "Let's go."

Two dozen Einherjar encircled the makeshift observatory; the man who'd gone to Thor took up a position at the door after Thor went inside. "Good afternoon, Heimdall," Thor said, echoed by Geirmund.

Heimdall returned their greetings, but followed it swiftly with a warning. "If we fall under attack again, I will have to take the tesseract to the Weapons Vault for safekeeping immediately. The heavy enchantments there will make it too dangerous for me to try to bring you back. I will have to find a place away from the battle, but where we can still protect the tesseract, and I may not be able to do that right away."

This gave Thor serious pause. Missing a war strategy meeting would be bad enough. Missing a battle…that could be disastrous. "I will return as quickly as I can. Heimdall, if we're attacked-"

"I will get you back here as quickly as I can, my prince."

Thor nodded, took a deep breath, and put his hand over the tesseract. With a nervous glance to Thor – he was familiar with bifrost travel, but thus far only Thor, Odin, and Loki had traveled via the raw power of the tesseract – Geirmund did the same. There was no need to discuss the destination; Heimdall knew. The observatory dissolved into blue and Thor again found himself outside Tony Stark's tower in New York, Geirmund at his side. This time, though, Tony was waiting for him at the door in black jeans and a long-sleeved black T-shirt, glass in one hand, small black device in the other.

Their arrival was silent, and for an instant, they were unnoticed. Thor took in his surroundings – it was nighttime in New York, but the city was still bright, more so than Asgard at night. It brought a certain unnaturalness to the city, as though it were trying to pretend it was still daytime. He could only make out a few stars, and there was an unnaturalness in that, too. Down below, the streets were identifiable by the streaks of red and white made by the vehicles that apparently continued to fill the pathways all night long with no abate. Thor had liked New York in the daytime. He decided he preferred Puente Antiguo and Tromso at night.

"Come on," Thor said to Geirmund, who had wandered to the edge of the circular platform they were on and was gawking over the city; at the same instant Tony looked up from the device in his hand, no doubt informed by his invisible servant of their arrival.

"Thor! Welcome back! And you brought along a friend for a play date," Tony said, coming forward and extending his hand, the device he'd held now in his pocket.

Thor grasped Tony's arm at the elbow, which seemed to surprise the man, and Thor remembered this was not the usual way mortal friends greeted one another. Tony went with it, though, and grasped his arm the same way. "Tony, it's good to see you. This is…" He turned to find Geirmund had only taken a few steps toward them, and was still taking in the view. "Geirmund, come, we don't have time for touring."

"Actually, we do, if you want," Tony said. "New York is the city that never sleeps, as they say. I can give you a VIP tour, even get you into some places that are closed to the public now. We can take-"

"We are at war, Tony."

Tony fell silent and stared, blinking for a moment. "Oh." He glanced between Thor and Geirmund, who was now back at Thor's side. "This is the Seven Realms Versus Asgard thing?"

"Yes," Thor answered with slight hesitation, somewhat wary of the word "thing" now around Tony. "This is Supplies Advisor Geirmund Faldarson. He would like to discuss with you the possibility of trade with Midgard for food."

"It is good to meet you," Geirmund said with a deep nod of his head.

"You too," Tony said, sticking out his hand; the two exchanged an awkward handshake. "So you, ah, you want to buy weapons with food?"

"No, good sir, you misunderstand. We don't need weapons. We may, however, need food in the future."

"Hm, well, they say there's a first time for everything. I've done weapons sales, other tech sales, energy sales-"

"Perhaps Geirmund can discuss it with your…Jarvis," Thor said, interrupting. He suspected that if he was going to make this a quick trip he was going to be doing a lot of interrupting. "While we discuss other matters."

"Uh, okay, big guy, I get it. Let's go inside," Tony said, continuing as Thor and Geirmund followed him in. "What you need is Pepper. And luckily for you, she's here."

This news set Thor on edge; he'd told Tony that this matter of Loki's presence needed to be kept in strictest confidence. He hoped Tony had respected his wishes. Pepper was sitting on a sofa bent over a stack of papers on a low table, but rose and came to them as soon as she heard them enter. Thor was first struck by how different she was from Jane, particularly in her clothing, a form-fitted dark blue suit and white shirt. Then, as she introduced herself politely and with no unnecessary words, he was struck by how different she was from Tony. "I'm pleased to meet you as well, Pepper Potts. Tony has spoken highly of you," Thor said, then took her hand and kissed it. He caught Tony's look of discomfort at that, and might have chuckled over it under other circumstances.

Geirmund introduced himself next, and likewise kissed Pepper's hand.

"And are you part of the royal family as well, Geirmund?" she asked after clarifying how he should be addressed.

"Oh, no. I am merely an advisor to the All-Father, and a new one at that. Tony has suggested that you may be able to assist in the provision of food for trade."

"He has?" Pepper asked, eyeing Tony. "I suppose we never did exactly define my job description, did we? All right. This is a new one, but I'm game for a challenge. We can discuss that here, and let Tony and Thor go discuss their business. Shall we?" She extended an arm to lead him to direct Geirmund toward the sofa.

"We'll just be a few floors down," Tony said. "So no more of that…hand-kissing. Or any-other-thing-kissing. Understood?"

"Of course. I-" Geirmund paused, distracted. "You…have fishponds inside your buildings here?"

"Don't ask," Thor said.

"We're working on getting rid of it, Thor," Pepper said with an apologetic smile and a sharp look at Tony.

"Let's go to your home theater, Tony. I have little time," Thor said, hoping desperately to preempt any further discussion along these lines. No one who wasn't there had any need to know what humiliation his brother had endured here – necessary though it was at the time.

He watched Tony lean into the middle of the vehicle to peer out as its door slid closed. Thor was just wondering if he should reassure Tony that he had nothing to worry about, that Geirmund was a happily married man with his first child on the way, that even were he unmarried, he would never so dishonor Asgard's allies and thus Asgard's king, when Tony spoke up instead.

"I like that, by the way."

"What?"

"The hand-kissing thing. Very dashing. Gallant, even. Still…don't ever do it again on Pepper's particular hand, okay, Prince Charming?"

"It's merely an expression of respect."

"Uh-huh. Well, you can show Pepper you respect her by telling her so. And maybe with a nice respectful wave, from the other side of the room."

Tony's smile was halfway toward a grimace, and Thor really wasn't sure if this was a jest or not. With Tony it usually was, but… Thor settled on a reassuring smile, and then the doors opened again and they stepped out into the same floor they'd gone to before. Thankfully, Tony then turned to the matter at hand.

"I'm glad you came yourself this time. Not that your other friend isn't a swell guy…Hogun? But, he's kinda hard to have a conversation with. And besides, I think you're going to want to see this yourself. How is Hogun, by the way?"

"Not well, at the moment. He was severely injured in an explosion at our palace. He's with our healers."

Tony's steps faltered just as they reached the room with the black chairs and silver tables they'd spoken in before for privacy. "Yeah. War. I'm sorry, buddy. Your family's okay?"

"They are. Thank you for asking."

"Okay, well…after you," Tony said, closing the door behind them once they were both inside. "Jarvis, bring down the screen and pull up that webpage. We may have some real progress here in Operation Where in the World is Loki Odinson. Thor…I know you're in a rush, but do you think you'll have time for a little trip?"

/

* * *

/

After lunch Jane went out to the Dark Sector Lab to work on reprogramming the structural integrity field. She could work on it from anywhere, really, but the jamesway wasn't all that comfortable to work in, and she decided she should try to make her pattern of activity look as normal as possible. That meant the DSL, where she used to do most of her work.

Selby and Wright were there, too, and that was awkward. She'd really been almost childish toward Selby, and he hadn't deserved any of it. Wright had told her to "man up." Now she knew she _had _to make things right, to apologize. But she'd have to do it when they were alone. She found herself eyeing Selby from time to time. Maybe she could even tell him the truth. It would be _wonderful_ to be able to tell someone. To not have to deal with this alone. That part would have to wait, though, until after Loki left. Like everyone else here, it was safer for Selby if he didn't know.

Wright came back from the telescope side of the building and sat down at the computer he used in the DSL, and Jane suddenly remembered the picture on their blog that included Loki. She wondered if it was still there, and wasn't sure whether she wanted it to be or not. She decided to ask, in as casual a tone as she could manage. "Hey, Wright, did you ever take that photo down, the one with Lucas in it?" His name sounded awkward on her tongue now, as lies always did.

"Yeah, as soon as you asked me to. And no comments from any crazed relatives or anything, so I think he's safe."

"Crazed relatives?" Selby repeated, breaking the silence he normally maintained around Jane now.

"He just doesn't want everyone to know he's here. It's not a huge deal. I just thought I'd ask."

/

* * *

/

"What is this?" Thor asked. He knew it was a projection of an image, perhaps from a computer; he'd learned that much in his previous time on Midgard. He remembered being shown an image of Jane on a computer, being given an assurance of her safety. He had a sudden longing to speak with her again, to hear her voice.

"Just watch," Tony said, depositing his empty glass on one of the low silver tables.

The image began to move. A group of men – or they could have been women, it was hard to tell underneath the bulky attire – were sliding around on what looked like ice, each of them with a long stick in his hand. They seemed to be chasing something flat and round across the ice.

"I…I don't understand, Tony," Thor said in confusion. He was quickly coming to understand _what_ he was watching, a team-based game of strategy and sport that already had him mildly intrigued; what he didn't understand was _why_ he was watching it.

"Patience is a virtue. So I'm told. Wait for it…"

As Thor watched, suddenly the image swung up and around in a blur, settling for a moment on a cheering crowd, then swung back down to the ice in another blur. The image then stilled.

"Did you catch that?"

"Catch what? No, Tony, I-"

"Jarvis, go to the money shot and pause it."

The image jumped back to the crowd. Thor shook his head, still not sure what this was about. "Is Loki participating in this game? Is that why you-"

"Zoom and enhance."

Thor blinked heavily, utterly lost now, but realized even before the image cleared up that Tony was still speaking to Jarvis. Then his mouth fell open. "Is that…that's Loki?" He wore that flat hat Thor had seen in New Mexico that stuck out in the front and hid most of his forehead – it looked strange and very unlike his brother. But the face…though the image was still imperfect, a little distorted, it was undeniably Loki.

"Computer says it's an 85% match."

"I say it's a 100% match." He then noticed the dark purple tunic. "That's what Loki was wearing when he left Asgard."

"This video was taken that same day, at a semi-pro hockey game in Melfort, Canada, and posted to YouTube the next day," Tony said with a quick nod. "I thought since security cameras weren't getting us anywhere, why not expand? Security camera footage gets expunged or overwritten pretty fast. Stuff people put on the internet tends to stick around. A lot longer than you want it to, sometimes. Believe me, I know. There's this-"

"Tony," Thor interrupted, trying to tamp down the rising tide of his temper, "Asgard could come under attack again at any moment. We _already_ knew he was sent to Canada. Why did you-"

"We _didn't_ know that Baby Brother found himself some friends," Tony said, raising his voice just enough to be heard over Thor's.

Thor looked again at the image projected on the large white screen, this time not just at Loki, but at the people sitting next to him. "Who is that?" he asked. "That man standing next to him." The darker, mustached man was leaning in toward his brother, mouth open to tell him something, and Loki's head was frozen at an angle halfway between the ice and the man's face, apparently listening to whatever the other man was saying.

"I thought you'd never ask. Loki may be hard to track down, but this guy, not so much. Your brother is watching the Melfort Mustangs play the Weyburn Red Wings at the Northern Lights Palace in Melfort. He's sitting in a block of seats bought by the Campbell Mining Corporation. And that gentleman chatting up our favorite tyrant there is company engineer Mr. Mohsin Tarkani. Wanna go meet him?"

Thor stared hard at Mohsin Tarkani, as if the man could turn his way and start answering his questions. _Could Loki really have befriended this man so quickly? It isn't his nature, and he holds these people in such disregard. Could he have harmed him, could he be controlling him in some manner? The enchantments should prevent such a thing…_ Thor wanted nothing more in that moment than to speak to the man in the video. "Heimdall could send me to this place, but he says it isn't safe for mortals to travel this way."

"Yeah, well, last I looked, you and me both came with our own transportation."

"I have only three hours – less than that – from the time I arrived. Is it enough?"

Tony grinned and a familiar glint appeared in his eyes. "It is for me. Care to have a little contest?"

/

* * *

/

Thor hadn't cared to have a little contest. Asgard was at war, and vastly outnumbered, and Thor, the mightiest of all Asgard's warriors save Odin himself, ran the risk of being trapped on Midgard. A contest was completely inappropriate, and he'd told Tony so. But Tony had needled him, making jest after jest about his hammer – some of them with lurid innuendo – and Thor was by nature highly competitive. And accustomed to winning. It would have turned into a contest even without Tony's needling.

Now, as they walked toward Mohsin Tarkani's dwelling, Thor pictured himself conducting a test to determine how fast he could make Tony fly with a nice brisk swing of Mjolnir, just to make him cease his taunts. They had snails on Asgard, too, and Thor didn't appreciate being compared to one. "You should be glad I left Mjolnir in that children's park," Thor warned him. They only had about twenty minutes left now, and that was with Thor at his top speed.

"Playground. I told you, it's called a playground. And you know, maybe Mjolnir's actually part of the problem. Too much drag. Maybe that's why you're slower than my grandmother."

Thor tensed, then sighed at the absurdity of it. He wasn't used to being teased so incessantly…Loki was, perhaps…but Thor shook off that thought. They were almost at their destination, and it was no time to get caught up in the past. "Then perhaps when Asgard has won another victory, I'll return and challenge your grandmother to a race, and we shall see."

Tony chuckled. "She uses a walker, so I'll only give you a couple minutes' head start."

They approached the left door of a small single-story building with two doors, and Tony knocked. "Remember, let me do the talking," he said.

Thor nodded and glanced down at himself, suddenly feeling nervous for some unknown reason. He felt awkward in the clothes that had been delivered while he and Tony met in the home theater – dark blue slacks, his own gray and blue tunic he normally wore under his other attire, and a dark blue "blazer" that was a little too tight across the shoulder and in the upper arm. Tony had put on a black suit that didn't look nearly as fine as the one he'd had on when Thor last came to New York, followed by the armor he now carried in a suitcase. Thor heard sounds behind the door and tried to straighten his posture without ripping the seams out in the material of the uncomfortable blazer. _I suppose I've worn stranger attire,_ he thought with a bit of a smile, caught up for a brief moment in a very old memory.

A woman with a long braid of dark hair down her back, in a long flower-print green tunic over loose green pants, partially opened the door. "Yes?" she said, eyeing Thor and Tony. A waist-high damp-haired little girl in a pink dress poked her head around the open door.

"Mrs. Tarkani? We're with the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement," Tony said, pulling out something from his wallet and holding it up for half a second before putting it away again. "We'd like to speak with Mr. Tarkani if we could. We just have a couple of questions we'd like to ask about someone he met."

Thor stared at Tony, barely able to recognize this persona.

"This is Canada," the little girl said.

"What is this about?" a man's voice asked, and the woman stepped back into the dwelling with the little girl. The man opened the door wider; it was Mohsin Tarkani. He wore jeans and a plain gray sweatshirt.

Thor clamped his teeth down tightly together to keep himself silent. He was accustomed to winning, and he was accustomed to doing the talking, not being told…_"know your place."_

Meanwhile, Tony pulled out a color printout of the image from the computer. "What can you tell us about this man, sir? One Loki Odinson. Although he may have gone by another name when you met him."

Mohsin looked at the picture in confusion, but clearly recognized the image. "Why are you asking about him?" he asked. Thor recognized a certain wariness in his expression, even in the slight changes in his stance.

"Well, sir, he's what we call an illegal alien. We're just trying to get his visa status straightened out. What can you tell us about him?"

"Zara was right, then. You're in the wrong country."

"Well, to be honest, sir, he comes from a rich family, and they really want to avoid any trouble, any publicity. So, could you do us a favor and help us out? He's not in any real trouble, we just need to find him."

Mohsin hesitated, but finally nodded and spoke. "I don't know that much. It was back in…the beginning of February I guess, the day that picture was taken. He, ah, Loki had some car trouble, and-"

"Car trouble?" Thor repeated. _Loki had a car?_

"That's right. I found him walking down Highway 6, and I gave him a ride into town. He was alone, and my family was still in Toronto, so I offered him my daughters' room for the night. I had tickets to the hockey match, so we went, then we talked for a little while and said good night. The next morning he went on his way and I went to work. That was really it. I haven't seen or heard from him since."

"Did he say where he was going?" Thor asked.

Tony cleared his throat and Thor glanced briefly at him with a frown, certain this was what Tony would've asked next anyway.

"No, he didn't."

"And he didn't…cause any trouble while he was here? Anything funny happen?" Tony asked.

"No, of course not. I wouldn't have let him into my home if I'd sensed any trouble in him. He was a nice man. A little quiet, but kind."

Tony put his hand up over his face and coughed.

"May I see where he slept?" Thor asked.

Mohsin appeared skeptical of that idea. "Ahhh, I…"

"Please. I would be in your debt."

"Uh, _Tom_, maybe we shouldn't-"

"I would see where my brother slept," Thor said, rounding on Tony, his voice creeping upward in volume. Tony sighed and Thor immediately realized what he'd let slip.

"The rich family," Tony said with a grimace, thumb out and pointing at Thor.

"You're his brother? From Norway?"

Four eyes snapped back to Mohsin. "That's right," Tony said. "So, Mr. Odinson mentioned his brother here?"

Mohsin glanced between the two of them. "Just that he – that you – live in Tromso. That he missed you and your family, and wanted to see you again. I remember because my sister's in Trondheim."

Thor never caught what Mohsin said about his sister. He no longer even saw Mohsin or his dwelling; Midgard had fallen away. The quiet, kind Loki that he remembered from Before, the Loki he yearned so badly to have at his side again, the Loki he'd never given up hope on – he'd no sooner arrived on Earth than he'd begun to seek out Jane. The person in this realm Loki knew he could use to hurt him most deeply. He had argued for this mercy to be shown to his brother, to give him a chance to learn, to be rehabilitated, and Loki had seized it as an opportunity to twist a knife in Thor's heart.

"My youngest daughter is asleep in that room now, so I would rather…"

Thor tuned out Mohsin's words, and the exchange that followed, his thoughts tumbling wantonly, dangerously darkened by anger and piercing betrayal.

The door closed. Thor blinked and the world snapped back into focus around him. Mohsin's kind, quiet Loki was nothing more than an illusion. _"A nice man," _he'd said. _A lie. When did the lies begin? The betrayals? He sabotaged my coronation. Betrayed me. The negotiations on Alfheim. Baldur. No. _No. _That was a thousand years ago. No…_

"_Thor_," Tony said, loudly enough that it was obvious it wasn't the first time. "Time to go, Your Tallness. Your war awaits," he continued once Thor finally turned away from the door.

They walked in silence for several minutes down a deserted street. "He went after Jane," Thor rumbled, anger still boiling in his blood.

"Maybe he just wanted to get to know her. You know, meet the potential sister-in-law."

Thor shot him a look to let him know what he thought of _that_ possibility. "At best he wanted to use her as leverage against me. At worst…"

"Hey," Tony said, speeding up and stepping in front of Thor, bringing them both to a halt. "I'm not exactly a dues-paying member of the guy's fan club, okay? But he didn't have any temper tantrums here, and there weren't any mysterious deaths. I checked. Tarkani back there actually _liked_ him."

"Loki is a talented liar." _Always has been._

"Look, it doesn't matter. Tarkani knows more than he's saying – he's protecting Loki. I think he knows Loki was headed to Tromso. _We_ know he was later in Warman, which is on Highway 11, between Melfort and the nearest real airport, in Saskatoon. So, fine, Loki wanted to go find Jane in Tromso. Even if he did make it there, she was long gone by then. She's fine. Wherever Loki is, he's not with Jane."

"I know. But not for his lack of trying. I don't…I don't know who he is anymore." Thor paused; his eyes grew distant. "I would fight my way through an entire army of enemies to save him. To protect him. And he…"

The moment lingered, Thor lost in thoughts shifting from anger to something akin to grief, and Tony uncomfortable.

"A dose of realism isn't a bad thing. But neither is hope. You guys live, what, basically forever? That means there's always room for hope, right?"

Thor took a deliberately deep breath and let it out slowly. Snow had begun to fall and the temperature was dropping.

"You're out of time, buddy. We should keep moving."

With a nod from Thor they set off again, soon coming to the children's park – playground – where Mjolnir rested undisturbed beside the swings. Thor called it to his hand when they were a few feet away; no one was around at night to see.

"Sorry about your clothes. The ones you've got on and the ones still at my place. There's no time to go back for them."

"I have more than one set of clothing, Tony."

"No kidding. Well, thank God for that. Don't get a big head, Charlton, I don't mean you. I'll keep looking, okay? I'll check flights into and out of Tromso. It's a small city, can't be that many flights. And I'll come back up here tomorrow, talk to the other people who were in the same block of seats at the game, in case they know anything. It'll go a lot faster since I won't have to slow down for you. But I'd be surprised if we get anything new."

"This man spent the most time with Loki," Thor said with a nod. "Thank you for bringing me here, Tony. I…Thank you for continuing this search. And for helping Geirmund with his task," Thor added, his thoughts now refocusing on Asgard, where a presentation of strategies for attacking Vanaheim was about to begin, perhaps already had begun without him. "We have few allies now…we have _no_ allies now," Thor corrected. "We appreciate your friendship and assistance greatly."

"Don't worry about it. I told you, we would've voted for Asgard. And you're up to 75% likability now. Hogun's all right – give him my best, by the way – and Geirmund, too, if he can keep his lips off of Pepper."

"He'll probably kiss her hand when he leaves."

"Then I'd better hurry back. You too, you're late."

Thor nodded. "Tony, if you speak to Jane again…I would ask that you not mention the war. I don't want her to worry."

Tony agreed, and the two exchanged final goodbyes, including an arm-clasp that went more smoothly this time, and Thor called for Heimdall to bring him home, hoping to feel the powerful pull of the tesseract.

/

* * *

/

Jane leaned back in her chair, rubbing her eyes. _This_ wasn't her favorite kind of work. And the sad thing was, there were probably nearly half a dozen people here who could do it better than her. But anyone good enough to reprogram a structural integrity field generator – a technology that didn't exist commercially yet, certainly not at this level of sophistication – would also be good enough to realize what they were working on and ask difficult questions.

She was making good progress, but needed a break. There were just a few minutes left before they lost the satellite window, so she made a quick check of her e-mail – four new messages, including one from Erik, which she quickly copied into a Word document for later reading. _What would he think of me, for helping Loki?_ She thought about Wright's and Selby's blog again. Although Jane hadn't started one herself, a lot of the Polies did, and she'd sent a few of the blog addresses to her friends…but of those, only Erik was likely to recognize Loki in that picture. He would have said something if he'd seen it, though…unless Loki was controlling her incoming e-mail as well as her outgoing mail.

Loki had controlled so much. _Everything_, it seemed. _But he never knew about that picture…_ Jane glanced at the time; four minutes left in the satellite window. Wright and Selby had gone back to the station, so she was alone. She pulled up the blog, found the post on the sunset dinner and party. The picture was gone, just as Wright said. She copied the title of the post into Google and ran the search, clicking on the cached version of the website. Again no picture; the search engine had already crawled the blog again since Wright took the photo down. She ran a search for internet archive sites and clicked on one, then typed in the address of the sunset post. She selected March 27 – after sunset but before Wright had taken down the photo – and found a red "x" where the photo with Loki in it had been; apparently the site archived only text, and pulled images from the current version of a web page. And that was it. No more satellite, no more internet.

The only evidence that Loki had ever been here. Gone.

The only thing Loki hadn't controlled, and she'd made Wright get rid of it.

She'd tried to protect Lucas from his horrible family, and had instead protected Loki.

She stared at the red "x" and felt very, very alone.

/

* * *

/

By late afternoon Loki had already finished making the control switch to turn the transmitter on or off. For good measure, then – mostly to keep his mind occupied – he made a second one. That would require another transmitter with modified battery, so he got to work on that, too, all from the machinist's shop at MAPO in the Dark Sector. Having watched Jane work on the circuit board for the last one, he thought he could do it, and wanted to test himself.

Jane's science was different from his. Inferior, of course, but…_but I wouldn't be on my way to Svartalfheim to get these curses removed without it._ At this point, now that he understood all the components – what they were made of, what function they performed, how they performed it – he could have created it all through magic, by changing the structure of other materials to the structure needed. He still clung, however, to the ruse that this was all some test of his ability to accomplish a task without magic. He knew Jane was skeptical of that, but it was a comfortable lie, perhaps for both of them.

He finished the additional transmitter, using magic to form the battery – his one cheat that Jane didn't need to know about – and sat back. His eyes fell to his hands, and the memory started again, the fury and rage followed by sudden realization. He had told Jane he hadn't been afraid. It was true; he hadn't been afraid of dying, hadn't realized that Odin's curse was at work, hadn't realized that it was his own hands and not Jane's constricting his throat, hadn't realized that if he'd continued he would have killed her and drawn his last breath right after.

So no, he hadn't been afraid for himself. But there'd been a flicker of something else there in that moment, when so much had rushed through him. Not fear _for_ himself…fear _of_ himself. Fear of the unknown path he was hurtling down, of his complete lack of self-control, so uncharacteristic of him. He saw Jane's face, looking up at him in terror, and his features grew hard, settling into anger. _It was _her_ fault. She provoked me. She _wanted_ a reaction, and she got one. Now she's learned not to provoke a god._

His certainty in blaming Jane faltered, and along with it, his anger. She fought with words; _he_ fought with words, as a preference. She was weak next to him; words were all she had. _He_ was weak next to Thor, his words far more effective than his fists. He could have walked away, out of range of her words, but no, he'd tried physically to make them stop. How many times had Mjolnir appeared in Thor's hand in response to Loki's words? It was _Loki_ who would walk away. It was _Thor_ who never could.

Loki leaned forward, face pressed into his hands, elbows resting on the worktable before him. He began to laugh. Perhaps he would _now _live up to Odin's ideals, since this was apparently what he wanted in a son all along. He wasn't sure where these thoughts ricocheting around his mind were leading or what they even meant, only that he wished to create another thousand switches to stave them off. They were another sign of lack of control, lack of focus, lack of…of something. Jane's fault. He needed to leave.

_What happened, happened. It doesn't matter why. I will leave this place. I will go to Svartalfheim. Brokk will remove the curses. I will begin anew. I will leave the past to itself and never look back. I am Loki…of anywhere I want to be._

* * *

/

_OK, at this point, my dear readers, I'd love to be able to take a poll. Do you think (a) Loki will travel via Pathfinder, (b) Jane will, (c) both will, (d) neither will, or (e) some combination of Jane, Loki, and someone else will? You'll find out very soon, BTW!_

_This is Ch. 41. Chapter 42, possibly titled "D-Day," is already written (as is the norm, if you follow the updates on my profile page). But believe it or not, "Chapter 43: Knives" is also already written, and has been for months. Which is very odd for me, but there's a reason. That means technically you could get two chapters today. But you aren't going to. I know, I'm cruel. But I still want my extra time for any edits I feel I should make to Ch. 42. Still, you may get slightly speedier new chapters than normal for the next two chapters. I've also written a little bit of the beginning of Ch. 44..._

_*Question to those who watched the new Loki deleted scenes online: What does "The Other" say to Loki right before Loki says (I think) "Mow them down"? Please, help!*_

_Previews from the next chapter: Loki starts thinking about packing and may run afoul of the United States Antarctic Program; Jane gets a magic demo that catches hers and Loki's attention; plans shift a bit in Asgard; Jane gets some answers but isn't sure what's true; Jane comes up with a new use for duct tape and considers giving Loki a parting gift (not necessarily related!); Loki experiences something he hasn't - or hasn't admitted to himself - in quite a while._

_And the excerpt:_

"What are you going to do when you get home?" Jane asked quietly.

Loki froze for a moment, then scrolled further down the screen. "Go to my mother and apologize for what I've done…have a long talk with Thor, I suppose...try to make amends." _How thoughtful of you to ask me to plan my own torture._


	43. (42) D-Day

**Beneath**

**Chapter Forty-Two – D-Day**

Loki entered the A-1 berthing wing Friday night, confident it would be one of the last times. One of the men working in the Clean Sector nodded and smiled as he passed; he nodded back. And then he was at Jane's door. He paused there, hesitating. He wanted to check on her progress – he hadn't gone to dinner and so hadn't seen her there – but he didn't think she would appreciate seeing his face in her door. Still…his need to know where things stood was almost overwhelming. He knocked, then took a step back. He could make it clear to her he had no intention of trying to enter without her permission.

Nothing.

He knocked again, a little louder.

Nothing again. He glanced at his watch; it was almost 9:00. Jane usually went to bed sometime between 9 and 10 so she could get up early, though he'd never understood why given that she was so clearly not a morning person. He supposed she could have turned in early – it had been a long and eventful day – or perhaps she could have gone to watch a movie or play in one of those volleyball games or something.

He walked away and continued the short distance to his own room, where he tugged off Big Red and hung it up on the hook on the door. His gaze lingered on it, at the "Lucas Cane" above the USAP symbol with its map of Antarctica. As much as he hated that jacket…it _did_ keep him warm, and now as he was preparing to leave all this behind, he felt a sort of odd fondness for it. _I think I'll keep it,_ he thought to himself. He laughed a little, remembering all the paperwork he'd filled out, all the times he'd signed "Lucas Cane" to documents promising he would return all of the gear issued to him, or have to pay for it. _Good luck with your attempts to extract payment from me. Good luck with your attempts to _find_ me._

He threw up a sound blanket, tugging at the recalcitrant corner as he was now used to doing automatically, then froze.

He'd put up a sound blanket in _Jane's_ room, right before confronting her about the papers she'd left on his desk. She probably _was_ in there, but hadn't heard him. He thought about going back, then decided _that_ would not likely go well. He would have to open her door and walk in. Short of trying to choke her again he couldn't imagine anything that Jane would react _worse_ to. But if he left her like that…what if there were a fire, or some other station emergency? What if her radio were off? She would never hear the alarm. Or if she fell from her bed as she had several times said she feared, and had broken bones and called for help, no one would hear her.

Loki thought it over for a moment longer, then took out from a drawer the list of items needed for building a new probe, the only piece of paper he had in the room other than the pages of his astronomy book and a flimsy booklet that explained how his telephone worked. After all, he still wanted to know how much she'd accomplished today.

/

* * *

/

Jane sat in bed, already in her flannel pajamas, reading about a rose in the book that had been left behind in her room by its previous occupant. Movement caught her eye and she glanced up from the book to see a piece of paper on the floor in front of her door. She eyed it curiously; station announcements went through e-mail, or the radio, or bulletin boards at strategic locations, even the station's intranet – not fliers pushed under bedroom doors.

After a brief moment she gave in to curiosity, left the book up on the far corner of the bed, and hopped down to the footstool and then the floor, where she slid her feet into slippers.

"_I am waiting outside your door. You cannot hear me, or anyone else, knock. You cannot hear anything from outside your room because of a sound barrier I created when I was last inside it. If you would allow me, I should remove it, for your safety."_

It wasn't signed, but it wasn't like there was a need. Jane glanced around the room, as though she could see this "sound barrier." "Loki" and "trust" were not exactly two words that went hand-in-hand. But as she thought about it, she realized she hadn't heard the usual coughs and bumps and muted hallway conversations she often did. She flipped the paper over, and saw that it was the list they'd made of materials needed to make more probes.

She pulled on her robe, then took a deep breath and opened the door. Loki was there, standing back a bit. "Is this for real?" she asked, holding up the paper.

Loki narrowed his eyes, his estimation of Jane's intelligence dropping a notch. "Lucky for you I can read lips. Yes, Dr. Foster, it's for real," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm she wouldn't hear.

Jane, who'd never been good at reading lips, scrunched her face up and shook her head. "Sound barrier. Right," she muttered, then opened the door wider and pressed herself against it, signaling Loki to come in. "Leave it up," she said as soon as he was inside. She positioned herself just inside the doorway.

Stopping in the middle of the room, he turned to look at her questioningly.

"So that's why no one came running when you were strangling me?" The words came out bold and icy, only the rapidness of her heartbeat and breathing revealing that they weren't easy to say. "When you were in here shouting? That's when you put it up, right, this sound barrier? So no one would hear what you were about to do?" She felt herself flushing and made herself stop. She'd wondered about his shouting, how no one seemed to have heard it. And the rest had just come tumbling out, occurring to her only as she said it.

Loki regarded Jane warily. He felt like he'd walked into a trap, walked willingly into his own prison cell, with Jane standing there at the door like a jailer. Loki had never liked feeling trapped. But he knew he had to take care with his reaction. Jane held the key to his ultimate freedom.

"Well?" she prompted.

"Yes, that's why no one heard anything. Yes, I created the blanket so that I could raise my voice without concern for what would be overheard, so that no one here would know who I really am. _No,_ I had no intention of harming you when I came into your room. My only intention _now_ is to remove the blanket. May I do so?"

"Tell me how you do it."

"Jane…"

"Tell me how you do it," Jane repeated, growing bolder every time she pushed and Loki failed to strike back.

"I understand now that you have mixed feelings for SHIELD. I didn't at first, you know. I thought you would be ecstatic for them to send you an assistant. But you belong with them, Jane Foster. They are also fond of interrogation. Very well. I'm not so unwilling a subject at the moment."

Jane gasped, for with his last sentence, suddenly she could _see _the sound waves created by his speech. And the sound waves created by her own gasp. And the sound waves created by the heating system. And then the whole room was full of a cacophony of sound waves, undulating outward from their sources until they reached any of the boundaries of the room, where their form changed into something different, flatter. It all looked something like the wave patterns she'd studied in some long-forgotten physics class, but not quite – these waves were three-dimensional, translucent, and in vivid colors that appeared to change according to a pattern, though Jane couldn't quite identify it.

"Touch the wall," Loki said, and for a moment Jane was too transfixed by the waves emanating from him to realize what he'd actually said.

She reached out with her hand toward the wall beside the door and let her hand hover over it. A slight tingling sensation washed over her hand, and then she could see a series of small gray waves tumbling over the wall – over all the walls, the ceiling, the floor, the open threshold behind her – innumerable but lethargic. "Hello," she said, not even bothering to feel stupid about it, and watched as the sound waves she created spread out and were absorbed into the wall before being expunged and fading away, dull and tiny and colorless. "Echo" was her next original contribution to the room's sound waves.

Several minutes passed before she turned back toward Loki, in the center of her room as he'd been the whole time, watching her with interest where she'd expected to see impatience.

"It's a representation," he said, filling the room with new colorful waves. "Not exactly the real thing. But close enough."

Jane nodded, watching the waves work their way through the room. "Still doesn't tell me _how _you do it."

"I suppose not," Loki said, and the waves disappeared. "But I don't know how to do that. Certainly not in any reasonable amount of time. You'll have to settle for this little display. Or improve your interrogation tactics."

"Did they? Interrogate you?" she asked, pulling her gaze away from the walls where she assumed sound waves were still being absorbed and weakened and redirected.

Loki smirked. _Naïve girl._ "Of course they did. Their curiosity is at least as strong as yours. Though their questions…and their questioners…I was less inclined to answer. You at least can understand something of what I tell you."

"I think there might actually be a compliment in there, if you look hard enough," Jane said with a faint smile, what she'd just seen still distracting her from everything else.

Loki couldn't think of anything useful to say to that – he could try to assure her again of how much respect he'd gained for her, how much he'd learned from his punishment, but it seemed a bit effuse at the moment – so he went back to the reason he'd come here in the first place. "May I take down the sound barrier now?"

Jane's head began to clear and she nodded, though she couldn't help thinking it would nice to have that thing up and running when she was trying to sleep and random noises sometimes woke her up.

"Good," he said, and it was already done. "And…your progress today?"

"Almost done. If the stress tests go well…Pathfinder should be ready to use by the end of the day tomorrow." Jane watched as something played over Loki's face, something she couldn't precisely identify, but she knew he was excited by the news. There was something a little scary there, too, though. Whatever it was, it wasn't the look of someone who was overjoyed at the prospect of seeing his family again soon. At least she didn't think so. But no way was she going to confront him about it. Not now. Definitely not here. "I'll see you tomorrow morning. We should probably work from the jamesway."

_Dismissed._ Loki was familiar with that tone, with that clearly hinted message. And it was fine with him. He was ready to escape this cage anyway. He plastered himself to the side of the doorframe opposite Jane to keep as much distance between them as possible, and saw her shrink back against the open door as well.

"Lo- Lucas…that was pretty cool. The…you know," she said, mimicking the movement of a wave with her right hand. The instinct to thank him was strong – because cool was an understatement – but Jane could take two steps back and to the right and be in exactly the same spot she'd been when his hands had clamped down around her neck. No more confrontation was happening here. But thanking him for something – anything – wasn't happening here either.

Loki nodded. Even the air smelled sweeter out here, on the outside. He'd thought it was rather "cool," too, but mostly because seeing it through Jane's eyes reminded him of the youthful exuberance he'd once had for such things, things that had long since become routine. "Until tomorrow," he simply said, and returned to his chambers.

/

* * *

/

Calm still prevailed across Asgard when Thor called to Heimdall, so he was brought home immediately in his ill-fitted Midgardian blazer and went directly to the Ambassadorial Estates to hear Tyr's proposals for an offensive against Vanaheim. He used Mjolnir to speed his return, scoffing and then laughing along the way at Tony's jibes. Tony could have his suit of iron. Thor would take Mjolnir any day. It had hardly left his side from the moment he'd first taken it in his hand at age twenty, and it was his oldest and truest friend, so he used to jest, other than Loki. With the first thought of his brother all mirth fled, and his grimmer mood was reinforced when he stepped into Midgard's chambers to find his father and Tyr sitting and waiting for him, his father's one eye regarding him sternly.

When Tyr spoke, he presented not plans for an attack on Vanaheim, but instead discussed a series of ideas along entirely different lines, which he and Odin had discussed earlier. The secret envoys, directed by Bragi, ten on Alfheim and nine on Vanaheim, were also to be used in new ways now, with others to be sent out as well, if appropriate citizens could be identified and were willing. If Gullveig feared being seen as dishonorable among his people, Odin would do his best to make sure that his fears came true.

Once Tyr left, Thor told his father where he believed Loki had gone and why, and Odin told his son that Gullveig had sent an ambassador to Asgard with familiar terms for surrender. Asgard had of course refused, and the calm of waiting had returned, while quieter plans were laid.

/

* * *

/

"Hey, Selby. Can I join you?"

"Uhh, I…I guess so."

"How'd you sleep last night?" Jane asked, setting her tray down with her French toast and double espresso.

"Well enough, and you?"

"Pretty good, I guess."

Selby nodded, clearly nervous, and went back to his own French toast.

Jane took a bit herself, but surreptitiously kept watching Selby. "So…I just really wanted to apologize for kind of freaking out on you a while back. I got a little worked up over…_things_, you know, and I just…I made a mistake. A big one. And I was thinking…maybe tomorrow we could just sit down and try that whole thing over again. With me sounding slightly less insane. Do you think we could do that?"

"Uh, well…I suppose so. I just…I don't really like drama, Jane. I want to do my job, gather some really cool data, have some fun along the way, and go home to my wife when it's all over."

"I hear you, Selby, and I'm really not the drama queen type. Or…I never used to be, I don't think…" _Until my van hit a Norse god in the New Mexico desert. That'll bring the drama. Along with the psycho family members, apparently._ Jane felt a flash of guilt for thinking of Loki as "psycho." He wasn't crazy…she didn't think. She didn't really know anymore. And it wouldn't matter much longer. Today was D-Day. Departure Day. If not literally today – if the structural integrity field didn't pass the stress test simulations, for example – then it would happen tomorrow, even if Jane had to stay up all night to be sure of it. "Anyway, no drama tomorrow, okay?"

"Yeah, okay. So what've you been up to lately? I don't see you out at the DSL as much as I used to."

It felt awful, especially after her little speech meant to begin paving the way to clearing the air between them, but Jane basically lied, telling him about the work she was now only slipping in on the side from time to time, the work she was supposed to be here to do. Jane felt eyes on her, and when she looked up she faltered a bit to see Loki standing nearby. He immediately started moving toward the food service area, but Jane could tell he'd been watching her. She shook it off and resumed her half-true tale.

/

* * *

/

"What changes did you make?" Loki asked, once Jane announced she'd finished a final check of the programming for the structural integrity field.

She started to show him, settling into teacher mode; he asked a question; she considered it and began to answer; he cut her off with a "never mind." He wanted to hear the answer, wanted to learn, but it would be wasted effort, along with wasted time. He would not be using this means of travel again.

"Why did you ask if you didn't want the answer?" Jane asked, mildly peeved.

"I'd love the answer, and if you gain fame and take some prestigious teaching post, perhaps I'll register for your class and learn all about it."

"Does that mean you're planning to drop by again at some point?" she asked, cautiously now. If somehow she ever did get this "prestigious teaching post," _Loki Odinson_ was the last name she wanted to see on the roster. Or _Lucas Cane_. Although he would be by far the most interesting student…

"Hardly. I was being facetious, Jane." _But you never planned to come here, either, did you?_ he asked himself. No matter. Everything would be different when he left here. He would make sure of it.

"Until the next time your father decides to punish you?" _Earth being his favorite punishment dumping ground and all,_ Jane thought bitterly, though she immediately regretted it. Thor had seemed a little offended when she'd said something like that to him. But still.

Loki's eyes narrowed, but he otherwise held his reaction in check. There were so many retorts he'd like to make to that – to deny Odin, to sneer that Odin would never have the chance to punish him again, to assure her he would never even _see_ Odin again. "Opposed to his methods of discipline, are you?" he asked when the tide of anger was past. "Then I suppose we have something in common."

"_Something in common…"_ Thor had said something like that, in Tromso, when he'd thought she didn't believe that he still loved Loki. Loki was looking down at the programming code again; she watched him in profile. As much as she thought she knew him, knew who he was at least – for knowing what he'd done in New Mexico and in New York, what he'd done _here_, to her, had certainly seemed enough – she realized now that she didn't know him at all. There was something in him that Thor loved. Something she'd never seen, except perhaps in the way he spoke of his mother…or at least the way he'd done so as Lucas. He'd said Loki hadn't always been this way, that they'd once been very close. She wondered who Thor had known as a brother and a friend, who it was that he was so dedicated to, for whom he refused to give up hope.

Maybe that person was gone now, only a few flickers left behind.

"What are you going to do when you get home?" Jane asked quietly.

Loki froze for a moment, then scrolled further down the screen. "Go to my mother and apologize for what I've done…have a long talk with Thor, I suppose...try to make amends." _How thoughtful of you to ask me to plan my own torture._

"That's…that's good," she said, really not sure where she was going with this. But she could picture the look on Thor's face when he'd talked about his brother, how disappointed he looked at her reaction. _Maybe…maybe I could try to make some kind of effort with him, for Thor's sake. What's the worst that could happen?_ she asked herself. _He gets mad and kills us both,_ she answered herself. _Hopefully he's learned that lesson well enough not to need a refresher…_ "He talked about you, a little bit. Thor, I mean."

"I know who you mean," he said, still not looking up from the laptop. _Wait this out. You can endure this. Only a little while longer…_

"He was worried about you."

Loki opened his mouth and promptly shut it again. What was about to come out of it wouldn't have been helpful.

"He said-"

"Jane," he said sharply, then took a moment to compose himself. He glanced up at her just briefly. "Whatever Thor has to say to me, he can say it to me himself."

"Fair enough," she said after only slight hesitation. He was going to be seeing Thor again long before _she_ was…and something about that seemed rather unfair.

"You, uh…" _Danger, danger!_ something inside Jane warned, but she pushed ahead anyway. "You didn't mention your father, just now.

_How very astute of you. Thank you for ensuring my torture plan overlooks nothing._ "Didn't I?" he managed to get out. "If all the required adjustments have-"

"Did he really give you that scar? Odin? Thor didn't talk about him that way, the way you did when you were telling me…when Lucas was…you know," she said, giving up as she stumbled over the words. She'd never forgotten that wild look in his eyes when he looked at that scar. It wasn't so different from the look in his eyes when he'd lunged for her throat. She stepped around the table to put it between them, just as she'd done yesterday.

"Thor wouldn't, would he?" The anger was rising up again, threatening to overflow. _Favored, privileged, unquestioned, trusted, arrogant, WEAK, IDIOTIC-_ Jane was watching him. Nervous. From the other side of the table. Loki straightened his spine and let the anger – the uncontrolled part of it, anyway – rush out and puddle at his feet. "You want to know about the scar? Yes, you _should_ know about the scar. My _father_ didn't want me to forget his…his enchantment, you see. So he seared it into my flesh. As I said, Jane, everything I told you as Lucas was true. He gave me this scar, and Thor stood there and watched. An old family symbol. Do you recognize it now?" He held his wrist up – he wasn't wearing his watch today – and pushed up the sleeve of his green henley and thermal undershirt.

Jane leaned forward warily, somewhat uneasy about taking her eyes off his face, and looked down at the wrist he held out to her. She'd caught the general T-shape before, but now, in the context of who he really was, she made the connection easily, even though the shape wasn't terribly similar to Thor's Mjolnir. She'd felt sick for Lucas over this story. But something seemed off about it now. Loki wasn't Lucas. Loki was…immortal. Or something more than "just" mortal, anyway. "Did it hurt at all when I slapped you?" she asked, remembering how it had felt on her end.

"Would it make you feel better if I told you it did?"

"It would make me feel better if you told me the truth."

"Then no. It annoyed me somewhat. You should take it as evidence of the positive impact of your people on me, Jane. I've killed for less. My time on Earth has made me a better person." _And if she thinks a slap from a mortal woman is the same as having magic seared into your flesh by Odin All-Father, then let her._

Jane looked at him in confusion for a moment, then shook her head. _He almost sounds like he's bragging about how easily he's killed…but he goes ballistic when I show him the names of his victims._ She felt a headache just beginning to work its way into her temple. _A better person because he didn't kill me for slapping him after he nearly _killed_ me?_ _Insanity…sick sense of humor_…Jane didn't know what to make of it. So she ignored it, and wondered if Odin's scarring of his wrist was closer to the _"it annoyed me somewhat" _end of the scale than the ambulance-ride-to-the-Asgardian-emergency-room end. "If you have so much hostility toward your family, why are you in such a hurry to go home?"

Loki drew in a sharp breath. Exactly the question he'd been trying to avoid. _You just couldn't leave things alone, could you?_ He hadn't helped, though, he knew, giving in to his urge to provoke instead of simply espousing the most useful lie, no matter how unpleasant. He looked up at her fully, dropping whatever pretense remained that he was remotely interested in the programming code on the laptop screen. _Humble. Contrite. Penitent,_ he told himself, hating the emotion that seeped through and made some lies so difficult. "Everyone wants to go home, do they not? Not everyone gets to. I should count myself lucky." And even worse, it wasn't entirely a lie. But when _home _itselfwas the lie, there was no going back.

"As for my eagerness," he continued, "surely you of all people understand I can't stay here."

Jane watched him, studied him really, until he looked down and picked up the RF switch he'd built yesterday, which they'd already tested. _That was…interesting._ Almost like an apology. Sort of. Closer to one than that _"it's unfortunate that my hands accidentally wound up around your neck"_ bull or whatever it was he'd said in the galley on Thursday.

"_Why did you do it?"_ Thankfully, Jane thought it, instead of voicing it. She didn't dare ask it aloud. And not "it," the choking, but "it," New York. "It," Stuttgart. "It," New Mexico. _How did you go from being as close as twins with Thor to killing him in Puente Antiguo? To dropping him from the sky somewhere over the East Coast? How did you change from the person Thor told me about, to someone who could carry out such wanton destruction and killing of innocents? Why would you _do _something like that? If you wanted to rule Earth so bad, why did you care so little about destroying it?_

"Why did you do it?"

Jane had once read that there were 101 uses for duct tape; she'd probably tested out a couple dozen uses herself. Now, as her eyes widened in shock and her lips flattened in self-recrimination and she steeled herself for Loki's reaction because she'd just gone and asked exactly what she'd told herself she wouldn't, she thought she should write to whoever maintained that list and submit the one-hundred-and-second use: keeping your mouth shut around Loki.

His reaction was not what she expected; he could tell. But his control was complete now. He wasn't going to answer any more questions, not really. He wasn't going to rise to her bait. He wasn't going to bait her himself. Not much, anyway. "Not the most original question, Jane."

"You don't like being questioned, do you?"

"Does anyone? Do you?"

"No, not always. But questioning is part of science. It's part of knowledge. Of discovery. Of…of basic communication. You answer questions with taunts, or more questions, or…you don't really answer. You don't really communicate."

"_You_ don't question, you interrogate."

"I interr-" Jane cut herself off before her voice grew too loud. "So you don't like being interrogated."

"I ask you again, do you?"

"Probably not. Closest I came was defending my dissertation, and I was sick to my stomach the whole week leading up to it and was so loaded up on caffeine that day I couldn't fall asleep the night after even though I was exhausted. See? That's called 'answering a question.' You should try it."

"If it helps you to know it, then, Dr. Foster – congratulations on your successful defense, by the way – no, I don't like being interrogated." _And will it stop here? No, of course it won't. She never stops._

"And SHIELD? What did they-"

"It isn't my responsibility to help you find moral clarity. They asked questions. I didn't give them the answers they sought. Had they had more time, they might have tried other methods. Their methods wouldn't have worked. Now can we _please_ begin the stress test simulations, if, as you say, everything else is ready?"

"Um, yeah. Yeah. Just, ummm…" She worked her way carefully back around the table, yet again uncertain if he was telling the truth, partial truth, or flat-out lies. It sounded like truth, but…maybe it wasn't possible to know for certain. She pulled up the simulation program, the same one that Tony Stark had provided for testing the probe's structural integrity field, imported the modified field generator programming, and clicked "Begin Testing." "All done," she announced, looking up to find Loki had switched places with her and was on the side of the table she'd moved to earlier.

"How long?"

"It'll run several hundred iterations of the test, but it's fast. Maybe two hours. Three at most. I don't remember exactly how long it took last time."

"Two or three hours," he said, and Jane nodded. It was an odd thought, a strange feeling. Two or three hours and then…what? He didn't know exactly. To Asgard. Then to Svartalfheim. To Brokk. To freedom. To…something.

"Hey, what am I supposed to tell people?"

"What?" Loki asked, pulled from his reverie.

"About you. About Lucas. When you're gone."

He looked at her with confusion. "That's hardly my concern, Jane. Tell them whatever you want."

"But-" She stopped, shook her head. "Okay, I'll figure something out." They stood there for a minute or so, Jane staring at the laptop, Loki fiddling with the RF switch. "We, uh, we should get some lunch. A watched pot never boils."

_Watched pot…ah._ Loki nodded. "I suppose it doesn't. I'm not hungry, but I should go pack a few things."

"Things? You have things? I saw your room."

"I have my favorite pair of boots, a few articles of clothing of far better quality than anything you have on Midgard."

Jane nodded, but it was another of those strange details that made her wonder who he really was. Was he wearing his favorite pair of boots when he ordered people to kneel in Stuttgart? Or had he left those at home that time? Were they his favorite because of the fit, or the style? And why was he concerned about whatever Asgardian clothes he had in that one suitcase he'd brought with him? Couldn't he just buy a whole new wardrobe when he got home? She'd asked enough questions, though, and these were just trivial. "Meet you back here in two hours?"

Loki nodded this time, and Jane got into her outer layers of gear and headed back to the station.

He was leaving. If all went well, he was leaving just hours from now. It was good, it was right, she was glad. But there was also something…unsatisfying, perhaps, about it. She kept going back to the fact that Thor said Loki was supposed to learn something here. Had he? Jane still didn't think so. He'd learned an astonishing amount of physics, there was no denying that, but that certainly wasn't what Thor meant. And there was so much anger in him…

She lingered over lunch, begging off invitations to join others. The lunch service ended; Loki never came. Jane thought back over their time here, and realized he had probably skipped a lot of meals. _Maybe Asgardians don't need to eat as much._ Jane snorted, remembering Thor eating his way through a box of Pop-Tarts followed by Izzy's Hungry Man special.

Loki was an enigma. Accepting enigmas as such, instead of trying to get to the bottom of them, really wasn't in her nature. But in this case she had no choice. And it was a good thing, really, she knew. Loki was dangerous. He was volatile. The longer he stayed here, the more risk there was of another blow-up, and she was the most likely target of his rage. Mostly because she kept ignoring the 102nd use of duct tape in favor of her unhealthy curiosity and odd little newly-emerged desire to help Thor.

Jane accepted that Loki would have to remain an enigma. She glanced up at the screen hanging from the ceiling. April 3. -63 degrees. Very little light crawled out from the horizon. D-Day. The day her life would cease being about Loki.

/

* * *

/

Loki sat in the Computer Room, logged into his "special" e-mail account for the last time. He approved Jane's incoming mail – she hadn't sent many outgoing messages since she'd realized he had some form of control of them – and then his eyes fell on the Draft folder, the little "1" there reminding him of an e-mail he'd composed, then thought better of sending. He opened it.

_Dr. Selby Higgins,_

_I must inform you that it has come to our attention that you have become privy to classified information for which you have not been approved, and that you have been leaking this classified information to others. As soon as aircraft are able to land safely at your location, we will dispatch a private flight to bring you in for consultations. We advise that you immediately cease contact with anyone you have been discussing classified information with, and that you make no long-term plans following your time at the South Pole. We look forward to meeting with you._

_SHIELD Security Operations_

A smile spread over his face. He'd intended to torment this man. He'd wound up busy, though, managing nothing more than the occasional taunt or manipulation, and the pilfering of his food from the leftovers refrigerator. _May as well have a little fun now, even if I won't get to enjoy the consequences._ And if the stress tests were a failure and Jane had to make further adjustments, it would make his additional time here more bearable. He clicked send.

He thought about removing the "trap" on Jane's e-mail…but that could be a bit of fun as well. _I wonder how long it will take before she realizes she won't be able to send or receive any messages without me here._

A few minutes later he stood in his assigned Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station chambers. Smaller than most of the cells he'd been imprisoned in, he'd never actually minded the size and simplicity. It had been his refuge, and when he shielded it from sound he may as well have relocated it to another realm with the sense of privacy it gave him. He'd made the sheets softer, transformed the bed covering he'd found in the "skua" donation area so much that it looked nothing like the lumpy thing it had started out as, and modified the desk chair to precisely fit his frame for greater comfort. The room was, in fact, not bad at all.

But it was time to go. Loki pulled his suitcase from the wardrobe, deciding to carry his clothes in it instead of his satchel. If ever he needed to make use of the tonic his mother had given him, he didn't want anything else in there impeding his ability to retrieve it immediately. He gathered the Asgardian items – all basic pieces, really, nothing identifying him as a person of means, much less a prince or king, unless one looked closely at the materials and tailoring. He briefly wondered if he even _was_ still considered a Prince of Asgard, once his kingship had been so unceremoniously usurped. If he'd been formally disowned, no one had told him. He gave a short laugh devoid of humor. It hardly mattered. He could go where he liked now, call himself whatever he liked.

He surveyed the Midgardian items. He'd largely become accustomed to them, but he had no desire to take these mass-produced things with him. He eyed the seersucker suit. Except perhaps for that. It was comfortable, it traveled well, and while it didn't please him as much as the ensemble he'd put together for Stuttgart, or even New Mexico, those had been mere illusions, transformations. He pulled the suit jacket from its hanger, folded it, and put it in the suitcase. He stared hard at it there. It looked ridiculous next to his Asgardian attire. It looked _less_. It didn't belong there. He yanked it out and tossed it into the wardrobe, not bothering to hang it.

Then he yanked off all the Midgardian items he wore. He wouldn't take anything from Midgard with him, except this suitcase, as a convenience. And Big Red, as a trophy. And a very warm jacket.

Black leather boots, black leather pants, forest green tunic, the large thick red jacket open over it, Loki looked at himself in the mirror and grimaced. It was grotesque, in a way. But it didn't matter. He only had to actually wear it out to the jamesway. Even that relatively short walk would be misery without it, especially given his lack of other layers of ECW gear. He took the suitcase between his hands and tucked it away.

He walked out of his chambers, down the corridor, and to the DZ stairs, with each step swearing he would never step on this ground again. He passed only one person, and ignored him. He stepped outside, and was instantly reminded _why_ people wore Extreme Cold Weather gear here; he hadn't tried going without it since the early days, when it had been cold but not _this _cold. The frigid air sank claws into him from his toes to his thighs, deeper and deeper until he reached the jamesway. He pushed the door in and closed it harder than necessary, making it shake on its hinges. Jane was already there, and he walked toward her, realizing then that his boots had stiffened up in the cold. He decided that if his favorite boots were damaged by this place he _would_ make a brief return trip to destroy it. Perhaps he would melt it; he could even call it benevolence, then, for the mortals here and apparently worldwide were concerned about the availability of fresh water.

"The results?" he asked, crossing the short distance between the door and where she was standing by the laptop.

"84% success rate, with a 2% margin of error."

_84%_...100% would have been nice, but Loki was hardly risk-averse. "Acceptable," he said.

Jane nodded. She'd known he would find it acceptable. If it were her doing this, she probably would've considered it acceptable, too. They were good odds. Nothing was 100% without risk – not driving to work, not getting on an airplane, not crossing the street. There was no reason why being flung across space-time an unknown distance through some kind of wormhole should be more reliable than getting behind the wheel of a car.

Loki set his leather bag down on the table next to her backpack, pulled off his balaclava and gloves, and started unzipping Big Red; Jane noticed for the first time that he was dressed like Thor had been in Tromso, with the leather and the thin shirt. She was grateful it wasn't the full get-up, the armor, the cape, the helmet with the horns; she wasn't sure if she could have continued to function. She reached for her bag, then for his.

"What are you doing?" Loki demanded when he looked up from shrugging out of his jacket. His hand darted out to grasp her wrist and pull it out of his satchel. He felt a twinge in his own wrist and promptly loosened his grip.

"Nothing, just…you didn't have lunch," Jane said, less afraid than startled at his swift, angry response.

He watched as her fingers fell open. On her palm were two of those packages of supposed food, similar to what she'd left outside his door on his first day here, only these were wider and flatter. He let go of her wrist. "You do realize this journey is measured in seconds, not days?"

Jane felt her cheeks flush from embarrassment. It had _seemed_ like a good idea… "They're for you to share with Thor, all right? He likes them."

Loki stared at her, incredulous. _Does she think I'm twelve? That I'll offer one of these delicacies to Thor and all will be well?_ And then he understood. She was using him. She couldn't see Thor herself, so he was a convenient message-bearer, like some palace servant, a means for a woman to contact her man. He nodded and smiled his appreciation, then took the crinkly-wrapped non-food from her hand and placed it in his satchel. He would dump the stuff at the first opportunity.

"Listen, I was thinking…84% is good…but this is still really risky. I want to know that you made it there safely."

"I'll make it there safely," Loki said automatically, quickly stashing Big Red out of visible existence.

"I won't have any way of knowing that," Jane said, the words coming out a bit slowly, distracted as she was by what he was doing with the jacket. "I want you to come back."

Loki froze in the middle of slinging the satchel over his neck again.

"Not…permanently, don't get me wrong. But you'll have the transmitter for the recall, so use it. Just…just come back, just for a minute, so I know you made it, that this is actually safe. I just need to know, okay? It's science." It wasn't just science. Even though he scared her, even though nothing had changed and she wanted him gone, she didn't want him to get killed, especially for Thor's sake. Thor wanted his brother back. Jane didn't want to have to lay awake at night wondering if the computer had gotten it wrong, if this whole thing was a general failure, and there was no more brother for Thor to get back.

"Fine," Loki said, settling his satchel into place. "I appreciate your concern," he added. "But don't expect me back right away. There'll be greetings and ceremonies…give me a day."

Jane frowned. "I was thinking more like an hour. They'll understand, your family."

_Yes, they're such kind, understanding people, aren't they?_ "All right. I'll return within an hour, just long enough to tell you it worked."

"Good. Loki…Thor said there was tension between Asgard and Jotunheim. That Jotunheim wanted to attack."

Loki looked at her in confusion again. Did she think she could fix that, too? "There has always been tension between Asgard and Jotunheim. And we- they- we are now in a state of war." _And if Jotunheim _does_ somehow manage to attack, whatever few of them are left, perhaps on Asgard they'll wish they'd let me finish what I started._ But it was really no concern of his anymore.

"Just be careful, all right?" _If there's something salvageable in you, it can't be salvaged if you're dead._ "This is all so unreal," she continued, glancing down at the display on the laptop. "I mean…this field is supposed to protect the probe from the stresses of launch and atmosphere exit and re-entry, but I don't know how it stands up to the gravity at Yggdrasil's mouth. It wasn't designed for that."

"Yggdrasil was made for travel. For you it's science; for me it's magic. Your science does its part, and Yggdrasil protects her travelers."

She nodded, slowly. She knew the time had come.

Loki strapped the transmitter to one wrist and the structural integrity field generator to the other. Each was about the size of Jane's cell phone, so a little awkward, but Jane had insisted they be secured to his body for safety, which she'd become quite concerned about over the last day or two for some reason. He slipped the RF switch with which he could turn off the transmitter into his satchel. Without another word he walked to the door; Jane had already set up Pathfinder behind the jamesway in its usual spot.

Outside the cold was vicious now, with no gear at all on, and clawed at him from inside as well as out. He forced himself to keep his steps measured. Jane soon hurried out behind him, still tugging her balaclava down, he saw when he turned briefly. She didn't need to be there, strictly speaking. He wasn't a probe; he could press the button that would send him into space perfectly well himself. But of course she would want to be there. This would be the highlight of her scientific career.

"Pathfinder will try to recall you at five minutes. If you've turned off the transmitter, it'll keep trying every five minutes," she reminded him.

Loki nodded, getting into position. "Position" was simply standing next to Pathfinder and resting a hand atop the stand built for the probe, ensuring that the field generator was physically touching the stand. Pathfinder was keyed to the transmitter, and the transmitter to the field generator, and the field generator would encompass him wherever precisely he stood.

Jane looked like she wanted to say something else, but she hesitated, and Loki wanted more than anything _not_ to hear her say whatever it was that was on her mind. And it was _cold_.

He glanced down at the button, then up at an anxious and nervously smiling Jane, and felt something he swore he'd never feel again after he fell from the bifrost. He hadn't felt it when he'd killed all those mortals, the ones Jane blamed him for or the ones he himself had actually killed. He hadn't felt it at any moment as he'd taken control of more and more of Jane's life. He hadn't even felt it after he'd nearly strangled her, not really.

He pressed the button.

_**Five.**_

"Goodbye, Jane."

But he felt it now, because even after everything he'd done, everything he'd done to her, there she was. Smiling and anxious. Concerned. Hoping this would work, hoping he could be reconciled to his family, hoping he could redeem himself.

_**Four.**_

"Goodbye. I hope…it all goes okay," Jane said, uncertain what else to say as she backed away from Pathfinder.

_**Three.**_

Guilt.

_**Two.**_

Because he was manipulating her and lying to her even now. He had no intention of letting Pathfinder pull him back here, not in five minutes, not within an hour, not ever. He was leaving and he was never coming back.

_**One.**_

Of course, that was what he'd thought the last time, too.

* * *

/

_If you line up to kill me, I'm going to call Thor and hide behind him, okay? ;-)_

_So I've left you with an honest-to-goodness cliffhanger...and if you're looking for the usual previews & excerpt...keep looking! You won't find it. Sorrrrry! Not. ;-) You'll see why in the next chapter. I'm still two chapters ahead by the way - Ch. 43 "Knives" is written, and I wrote Ch. 44 (maybe "Falling") in quite possibly record time. So that means you're still likely to get Ch. 43 more quickly than usual, as you did this one._

_Interesting that what you expect re travel was pretty well split..._

_Guest 4/13, you know who you are, Thor should really have a chat with you, he might learn something! ;-) Thank you so much for all the reviews, all the comments, it was lovely to hear from so many of you. I appreciate every one of them, truly. Thank you to all my readers, so much. *You* are a big part of what has kept me going on this._


	44. (43) Knives

**Beneath**

**Chapter Forty-Three: Knives**

His opponents stared down at him for long minutes. He could not bring himself to think of them as enemies – they weren't worthy of that designation. He saw no incongruity whatsoever in that judgement and the fact that he did not seem to be able to pull himself entirely up from the rubble the Hulk had left him in. He had not been able to apply tactics solely of his own choosing, and therefore the contest was invalid. Not that it mattered now.

No one seemed inclined to follow through on Stark's offer of a drink, so Loki's gaze eventually drifted to Thor, whose face was as hard and cold as he had ever seen it. When their eyes met, Thor stepped back, spun Mjolnir, and flew out through the new floor-to-ceiling opening that Loki had created by tossing Stark through the glass.

That was a surprise. Loki didn't know what to make of it, but neither could he be bothered to wonder much about it, not when his head felt like it must have been split in two like a melon. "I love what you've done with the place, Stark. A room with both a view _and_ a breeze."

"Thanks, but for future reference, I do prefer to approve architectural changes in advance."

Loki smirked at him, then worked hard to hold the expression while he tried to hoist himself further up, out of the shallow pit and up the three stairs. His right ankle wasn't functioning at all, his right shoulder burned as though on fire when he tried to lift himself with his arms, Barton stretched his bow tauter, and the Hulk growled. Loki stopped trying to move.

He was wondering how much longer he might have to sit there staring back at them – and how long Stark would be able to hold back his incessant jabbering – when Thor flew back in through the former window. Loki narrowed his eyes at him. The others took a step or two to the left, eyes and weapons still trained on him, while Thor set himself down on the ground with a slight grimace that brought a cold smile back to Loki's lips. Thor left Mjolnir on the ground at his feet and reached his right hand into the brown leather bag he held in his left. He withdrew manacles connected by a forearm's length of chain and some other metal object Loki couldn't immediately identify.

"Do you submit, Loki?" Thor asked.

"You mean those gifts are for me? Why, Thor, it isn't even my birthday."

"I ask you again. Do you submit?"

Loki swung his head slowly toward Barton. _Release the arrow into Thor_, he willed, not that such direct instruction had ever been needed before. Barton did not flinch; his stare did not waver. He hadn't thought it would work, but it was worth a try. It wouldn't have hurt him anyway. _Well, one of those exploding ones would have smarted_. Loki turned back toward Thor. "Do I have a choice?" he asked in a friendly tone.

"Allow me, Thor. No. You really don't."

The voice was Barton's, but Loki no longer had any interest in him. The connection was truly gone, and without it the best he could do was plant suggestions that could be accepted or rejected – even that was a new skill, barely tested.

His eyes never left Thor's as he gave the tiniest incline of his head. Let them think he was unwilling. His pride made that part easy. For now the safest place for him to be was far away from the scepter that Romanov was holding, and he was too injured to see to that himself. These mortals may not realize the extent of his injuries, judging only from the surface evidence, but Thor would know he was in no shape to make some grand escape.

Thor reached down to pull him to his feet, and Loki grit his teeth against the pain that shot up his shoulder and straight through the rest of his body. Something bit at his chest, which wasn't rising evenly with his breaths; he suspected a broken rib had punctured a lung. That was probably his most serious injury – unless his skull really _had _been split in two – but it was easily treated on Asgard and didn't concern him at the moment. When Thor set him on the ground on his own two feet, though, he sucked in a breath at the pain and barely managed to stay upright, holding his right foot ever so slightly off the ground to avoid putting weight on it. He knew Thor had seen, but he vainly hoped the others hadn't.

When Thor brought the manacles toward the wrists he voluntarily raised, Loki could feel sparks of magic shimmering along the metal like electricity. Loathing for the metal cuffs and what he knew they would do to him travelled from a simmering cauldron inside him, through the chain, and up to the so-called brother who was pressing the manacles over his wrists. At the last second, before Thor could close the metal that would bind him in only one way that mattered, he jerked his hands away.

Firm hands immediately clamped down on his arms from behind; Loki didn't bother turning to see whose. Thor froze in place, eyes flashing. Mjolnir leapt the short distance to his hand; the sound of thunder rolled in unobstructed through the spaces where windows used to be.

"Wait," Loki said. Without moving his head he glanced down deliberately at his right foot. Everyone else was behind him; only Thor could see the look.

Thor regarded him warily for a moment, then nodded. Loki immediately bent down and placed both hands over the ankle that still hovered half an inch from the floor. It was difficult work. Mjolnir was hammering away inside his skull, and he was exhausted and nowhere near full strength. But the results did not need to be perfect – the bones and ligaments merely needed to be sturdy enough so that he did not have to be humiliated by Thor being forced to carry him. Eir and the other Asgardian healers could do the rest, and Loki had little doubt he was headed back to Asgard.

Satisfied that his work was sufficient for its purpose, Loki let his foot touch the ground, slowly let his weight distribute evenly over both legs, and rose back up to again hold his hands out. Thor let Mjolnir slide back down to the floor and snapped the cuffs closed over his wrists; Loki felt an electric charge race down to his fingers and up his arms and his chest and down to his legs and up to his head, where it made him dizzy for a split second, and then it was gone, along with all his command of magic.

/

* * *

/

Loki snarled as the gag went on. It not only muffled sound by covering his mouth, it prevented him from forming most recognizable sounds at all by depressing his tongue. Yet he found it unexpectedly comfortable. It fit like his clothing: custom made. He wondered how long ago the All-Father had had it constructed. As long as he kept his breathing steady – and he knew how important this was from the time Thor had tried to beat him to a pulp after a little experiment with sealing Thor's lips shut hadn't gone quite according to plan – the gag should be nothing more than a minor annoyance.

The little band of opponents began to scatter, until only Barton, Stark in his metal suit, and Thor remained standing at the ready, watching him warily as though he were still capable of doing anything more dangerous than kicking out at them with his broken ankle. Which he was, of course. The chain connecting his manacles was for show only, he suspected – not necessary to the enchantment and too long to actually prevent him from using his arms and hands. He could make good show indeed of it by spinning, kicking, throwing his arms around Barton's neck, and squeezing hard. With Barton between him and the other two, "Hawkeye" would be dead on the floor before Thor or Stark could stop him.

But to what end? Barton's body would be a tripping hazard and Thor would start hammering and Stark would start blasting and Loki would need even more of Eir's healing charms when he got dragged back to Asgard. Still… He was just considering doing it anyway for the sheer satisfaction it would bring to remind Thor and these mortals that he was not truly defeated, that he was still a god compared to the mortals, when the others started trickling back in, Banner thankfully in his weak form.

Loki gave a short involuntary hiss when Thor grabbed his right arm and jerked him forward. Bracing himself mentally against the pain he knew it would cause, he twisted his body abruptly to the left and wrenched the arm free of Thor's grasp. He glared at Thor but continued walking forward, toward the stairs that led to the balcony area. _I do not need to be led like a dog on a leash_, he said with his glare, and Thor apparently got the message and stayed by his side but did not touch him further.

Everyone else was wandering in the same direction, then they paused just outside the building. Loki heard the helicopter approach before he saw it. He stared at it as it came into view past severely damaged buildings, remembering the last time he'd seen a helicopter like that. He'd blasted that one out of the sky.

/

* * *

/

They were in the air for only some seven or eight minutes, two helicopters actually, before landing atop a non-descript red brick building only a few stories high in a more industrial area of the city. Four men in dark blue jumpsuits stood there waiting for them, rifles pointed down but ready to be lifted in an instant, little wires wrapped around their ears. Loki tried to smile at them as he got out of the helicopter, but the gag prevented it. Instead he made it a point to look each of them directly in the eye. One of them blinked rapidly and worked his jaw. Loki wanted badly to be able to smile at this one, to watch him come apart from a mere look. For Thor and these "Avengers" to see him do it.

The group filed through a white door into a small vestibule that led only to stairs, and down they went until met by Nick Fury in a glass-lined hallway. "Well, if it isn't Loki of Asgard. Good to see you again. You must have really missed our hospitality." He paused, widened his eye a bit. "Too overcome with emotion to speak? When you get your voice back, I can still get you that magazine if you want it. You just let me know." Fury clapped a hand on his right shoulder as if they were old friends…and as if he knew that something was torn there and the pressure would cause severe pain.

Loki ground his teeth behind the gag and stared with unblinking eyes back at this insufferable man.

"Rogers, follow these men" – he released his grip on Loki's shoulder and indicated the two heavily armed SHIELD agents standing in front of the next flight of stairs down – "and escort Mr. Odinson down to his home-away-from-home. The rest of you, I want you in the conference room _now_."

Rogers, the man who looked like a hundred-year-old Aesir instead of the hundred-year-old mortal he really was, put one hand lightly to Loki's back and extended the other forward. Loki ignored him and followed the blue-jumpsuited agents, while Rogers fell into step a few paces behind. He strained his hearing to its limit and caught the phrase "back to Asgard" from Thor. Although there was little doubt in his mind, _no_ doubt would be preferable when it came to whether Thor intended to take him, the tesseract, or both to Asgard.

Three more flights down and one turn to the right later they were stopping in front of a metal door in an austere, utilitarian corridor of gleaming silver metal walls. One of the agents swiped a card through a machine on the door and it popped open. Rogers waited, but Loki stayed where he was, staring at him.

"I get that you're probably trying to make some kind of point here, but frankly I'm tired and really not interested. So can we just cut to the chase, assume you've made your point, and have you go on in?"

Loki cocked his head to the side and stretched his neck forward for a moment, keeping his expression neutral.

Rogers sighed. "Fine. The only person you can disturb in there is yourself, anyway. Hold still."

Loki did, and Rogers stepped behind him and did something to the gag that made it go slack. Loki reached up to pull the device from his mouth – and to try to get a better look at how it worked – but Rogers was already removing it.

"I wish to speak with Thor," Loki said as soon as his tongue was free.

"I'm not a genie and you don't get three wishes. You get a bed, a bathroom, and three squares. Now come on," Rogers said, gripping his left arm.

Loki let himself be maneuvered into his "home-away-from-home." Rogers was about to close the door when Loki repeated in the same tone and volume, "I wish to speak with Thor."

"I'll tell him you said so," Rogers said over his shoulder, the gag in his hand. The door closed.

/

* * *

/

Loki prowled his new prison, rather different from the ones he'd been in before. The only piece of furniture, metal with a white mattress and a gray blanket and two gray cushions attached to the wall along the bed's length, seemed to double as both a sofa and a bed. A toilet with a waist-high partial wall for privacy was in the back corner on the other side of the room. A tiny metal sink, no way to bathe. _Not for long-term detention, then._ The door was metal and heavy. The walls appeared flimsy but were no doubt reinforced; they didn't give when he pressed against them. Large mirrors covered the upper half of the walls on the left and right. The floor was some kind of textured rubber. The ceiling was opaque and appeared to be made of glass, but when he stood on the mattress and tested it with his fist it didn't shatter the way glass would. A small square in the center of the ceiling was different, open to ductwork above and covered only with a fine metal grating that didn't budge when he tried to push it up or pull it down.

Loki had no intention of trying to escape, but it didn't hurt to keep the mortals on edge. He was sure they had some means of monitoring him in this room. And escape attempt or no, it was always a good idea to know as much about your environment as possible, and these new accommodations had not come with an explanation – much less a demonstration – of security safeguards.

Several minutes later Loki was sitting serenely on the bed, his legs crossed and his back straight, the pose regal and elegant on his lanky frame. Now that he was off his feet, not using his shoulder, and breathing calmly and lightly, he realized that in fact there was not a bone or patch of flesh that did not hurt from the pounding he'd taken; the rest of the aches had simply been obscured by the more acute injuries. He was wondering if the mortals intended to feed him, if that's what Rogers's "three squares" referred to, when the door opened and Thor entered.

He stood uneasily, empty-handed just inside the door, letting it close behind him. "You wanted to see me?" he asked.

Loki was glad to see him without Mjolnir, but in a way insulted as well. Thor without Mjolnir meant Thor perceived no threat. Thor was naïve, always had been, apparently always would be. Three different tales were already spinning their way through Loki's mind, three different stories he could feed Thor, any one of which stood a good chance of convincing his former brother to help him escape. Mjolnir would be no defense against such an assault. He snorted. Rogers really should have left the gag on.

Thor huffed, turned, and pressed his palm against the door. Loki heard complex locks clicking, separating, preparing to open the door.

"Are you taking me back to Asgard?" Loki asked before the door could open, pushing himself up to his feet.

Thor removed his palm from the door; Loki recognized the pattern of clicks reversing themselves.

"I am. As soon as some final arrangements are made here."

Loki nodded. He wondered what those arrangements were, and how long they would take.

"Do you need a healer? They have one in this building. They call them 'doctors' here." The voice was business-like, as though Thor were taking him on a tour of Midgard. But Loki knew him. Knew him almost as well as he knew himself…these days knew him perhaps _better_ than he knew himself. He saw the way Thor seemed to struggle to meet his eyes, the awkwardness in his stance. He was roiling with conflicting emotions, and needed only a few carefully selected words to push him in one direction or another.

"Loki?"

"I'm fine."

"Brother, you're-"

"I'm _fine_. Would _you_ go see one of these Midgardian 'doctors'?"

He could see Thor seriously considering it, though not for long; the answer came quickly. "No. I've encountered them before. I wouldn't do so again if I had another alternative. And you do. We both do," he added, giving Loki a pointed look.

Loki let his eyes settle on the side of Thor's abdomen where he'd slipped a knife inside him. It was little more than a distraction, in one sense. He knew it wouldn't seriously hurt Thor. Not physically. He also knew that in another sense it had utterly crushed him. He had rejoiced in it, in his power to inflict agony deeper than the physical, in his ability to shock, in his momentary triumph. And when Thor's stunned gaze met his, he had also felt a burning pain himself, as if someone had slipped a knife between _his_ ribs. But that was easily pushed aside. He was skilled now at pushing things aside. He'd left Thor to bleed and lament his lost brother, and thrown himself from the building before the fight could continue.

"How long?"

"I'm not certain. A couple of days, perhaps. Father says we can use the tesseract. It's less stable than the bifrost, but it will work."

"I have missed Eir. It would be good to see her again."

Thor looked confused, but then nodded. He understood, thankfully. Loki _did_ need to see a healer, but he would never admit it here. He had additional reasons for wanting to leave soon, but those he would keep to himself.

"Your Director Fury spoke of hospitality, you know," Loki said a moment later, his voice open and friendly, as though things were as they always had been, full of comfortable lies. He sat back down on the bed and pulled his legs up to sit cross-legged. "I remain unimpressed."

"What do you need?" Thor asked, still standing by the door.

"One of your new sparring partners offered me a drink. I've yet to receive it."

"What would you have?" he asked after a brief hesitation.

"Do they have mead here?"

"Loki…"

"It's a simple question, Thor. I'm sorry, I don't think I can find a way to make this one any simpler for you."

Thor frowned. But he acquiesced. "I don't know. They have beer and something stronger that they sometimes mix with it, not mead."

"What is beer?"

"Kind of like apple juice. But bitter instead of sweet."

Loki made a face. "They must have other things. Stark had quite a collection on his shelves. It would be most _hospitable_ of him to share. We should try them together, Brother. I have no need of magazines if I have the mighty Thor with me," he said, mocking the way Thor occasionally liked to introduce himself.

Thor took a deep breath, then glanced up at the mirrored glass on the wall across from where Loki sat. "I will ask," he said. He turned and pressed his palm to the door again.

Loki watched him go. And now he knew the vantage point – at least one of them – from which his opponents monitored him, via camera, he suspected, though it was always possible they were all piled in the next room watching him eagerly in person. He smiled pleasantly for them. They wouldn't trust the smile. But they would be intrigued with the change in demeanor. Some of them, anyway. Certainly the one who owned the alcohol.

/

* * *

/

Loki suspected an hour or so had passed – an hour during which he sat as still as a statue, smiling at the spot on the wall Thor had looked at – before the door opened again. Thor strode in, looking less awkward than before but still sufficiently off-kilter to give Loki a bit of dark amusement. A shiny metal shelved cart trundled in after him filled with bottles and glasses, pushed by none other than Tony Stark, sans metal suit. The smile fell from his face as he looked on with genuine curiosity.

"Okay, Rudolph, I do have a reputation to maintain, even among evil bad guys. Tony Stark offers a drink, never let it be said he fails to provide. What would you like? My deepest apologies, I'm fresh out of mead. If you were going to be here with us longer I'd be glad to special-order you some, but Thor here tells me you've already booked tickets home. I've got whiskeys, vodkas, brandies, gin, rum, if you really want to go the sweeter route I've got port and a lovely California cream sherry. Scottish, Irish, French, Polish, Portuguese, made in the good-ol' U.S. of A., you name it. I've even got a bottle of Russian stuff here that I'm told translates to something like 'self-immolation.' If it's not on this cart I can get it from Stark Tower. Except mead."

Loki let the words wash over him. They didn't have these drinks on Asgard, so how was he supposed to select one? He was stuck on the word "evil." _Is that what I am?_ he asked himself. The corner of his lips turned up into a hint of a smile. _Why not? It is my birthright, after all. If only I could have realized it sooner. All those years spent struggling to live up to something I never could…how liberating it would have been to know I was simply evil and there was no need to try to be anything else?_

"We don't know of these drinks. Perhaps you could suggest one for him to try," Thor supplied, then gave Stark a look of some sort. A reminder. They had discussed something about this before they arrived.

"The strongest one you have, if you wouldn't mind," Loki said in his most polite voice.

And there was that look again. Loki had guessed correctly.

"Everclear's about the strongest you can get, and I do have the occasional taste for low-brow but that's a fast-pass to the porcelain altar. I don't stock it. Why don't we go for something more sophisticated? Even failed dictators should have a chance to try a vodka martini. I mean, if it's good enough for Double-Oh Seven, you know?"

Loki nodded his head once. He really had no idea what Stark was talking about, but it didn't matter. Thor was watching with confusion, mouth open slightly, as Stark started reaching for bottles on the cart. He was trying to decide whether to ask for a translation. _Imbecile._

Thor didn't have the chance to ask, because once Tony had placed two bottles, two small squat metal containers, a taller metal container, and an oddly-shaped glass on top of the cart, he picked up his monologue again, explaining that Grey Goose was overrated and while he had that, for his special out-of-town guests he would recommend a special-collection Belvedere. Loki listened without listening. He had nothing better to do at the moment; Stark could prattle on all he wanted. At last he handed him the strange glass.

Or tried to. Loki stared at it, putting no small effort into not letting his expression match Thor's. "What is that?" he finally asked.

"Haven't you been listening? Vodka martini. I took the liberty of making it dry. Vodka and vermouth, on the rocks, one olive. Oh, and shaken, not stirred, of course." Stark held the drink out further. He seemed to prefer to stretch his arm rather than step any closer.

"Is this the child-sized glass?" he asked, wondering if Thor had talked Stark into lying and serving him some version of beer, which sounded like it must be a children's drink.

"Uhhh…no. Did you miss the 'sophisticated' part? You don't chug this. You sip. You _savor_."

Loki sighed and took the glass between his thumb and pointer finger, at the top of the stem, careful to avoid touching Stark. The angle of the part of the glass containing the liquid was extreme; one could not simply guzzle it down without spilling it everywhere, Loki suspected. He sniffed it. Slightly odd, not a strong smell. But he had no idea what he was smelling; Stark had mixed two different drinks into the strange tiny glass. On Asgard the only mixing he'd ever known of was the occasional woman who added a little water to dilute her wine. Prepared from the inauspicious start to dislike this drink, he removed the olive on its little stick, brought the glass carefully to his lips and took a tiny sip. He wrinkled his nose, then drained the glass and handed it back to Stark. He ran a thumb over his lips to catch the drops that had come over the side of the bizarre glass.

"Perhaps you have another recommendation?" he asked.

"Okaaaay. Let's go Frank Sinatra. Manhattan. Appropriate, don't you think? You bring an army to destroy it, we defeat you, we serve you a drink named for it. Now you could go single malt here on the whiskey, but since we're mixing it with vermouth let's go for the Johnnie Walker blended stuff. Blue Label for you, Real Power. And we can use a lowball since you clearly aren't a fan of the cocktail glass."

Loki watched as Stark again mixed alcohol from two different bottles, this time into a more reasonably-shaped glass, if still rather small. "Did you just put fruit in that?" he asked.

Stark stopped what he was doing, closed his eyes, and sighed melodramatically. Then he turned to Loki and handed him the glass. "This was fun for a few minutes. It's getting old now. Here."

Loki took the glass, sniffed, sipped, downed it. He decided to eat the bright red cherry; sweet and unusually tangy, he would have liked it had it been served in a dessert instead of a glass.

He gave the glass back to Stark and stood up, noting with satisfaction that Stark took a couple of steps back. _Not so brave without the metal suit nearby, hm?_ "I agree. This is getting old." He began lifting bottles and sniffing them, starting with the vermouth. Vile. In the vodka he detected very little scent. He took one of the short glasses Stark had called a "lowball" and filled it to the brim. It looked like water. It did not taste like water, he found when he downed the contents. He didn't care for it. He sniffed the whiskey. It had a subtle aroma, reminiscent of smoke and peat, but there was no burn at his nose. He filled a new glass. It was incredibly smooth, and somehow reminded him of leather. He suddenly pictured himself taking his favorite horse, Lifhilda, out on a long ride through a damp fallow field. The horse he may never see again. The horse who had probably been given to a new owner by now – perhaps to Thor.

"I like this one," he stated.

Thor stepped in closer to pick up the bottle and take a look. Loki felt Stark's eyes boring into him.

"I don't think I usually look like that when I like a drink," Stark observed.

Loki ignored him, refilled his glass, and sat down again.

"A lot of people like it over ice," Stark said.

"Tony…perhaps you should leave us now," Thor said as Loki's expression darkened even further and his eyes locked on Stark's.

"Uuh, right. Okay. Hope you're okay with playing chaperone, big guy. Something tells me he's going to need one. Anything changes, you know what to do."

Loki watched in silence as Stark left. _Drinks over ice._ He shook his head and took a long draw from the glass. "Are you going to just stand there all day?" he asked his former brother. "I don't _actually_ need a chaperone, you know. Haven't for a good one thousand and…twenty years or so?"

"I've agreed to stay with you to make sure you don't cause any trouble. We know you were looking for a means to escape."

"I've no need to look. I've already found one. More than one, in fact. I'm looking forward to a visit home, though. The reunion with your father will be delightful, I'm sure."

"_Our_ father. _Your_ father, Loki. Who else would you call 'father' if not him?"

"No one, at this point, I'm afraid. I know you were a little late on the scene, but surely you've heard. I murdered my father. Don't grieve for me, Thor, we weren't terribly close."

"I grieve for you more than you know," Thor said, pausing to swallow. "I grieve for my brother. I know he's still in you, somewhere beneath all your anger and irrationality."

"You seek a shadow. Shadows disappear when the light shines directly overhead. And when the light disappears," Loki said softly but matter-of-factly, staring down into his drink. He took another swallow. "You should try this. It's not disagreeable."

Thor pushed the cart away from where it was blocking the other side of the bed. He sat down beside Loki, far enough away that he could turn and easily watch him. "Why…why did you do this, Loki? Why did you seek this? You know you have no claim to Midgard."

Loki swished the amber-colored liquid in his glass. "Were I willing to explain it to you, you would not understand."

"I would try," Thor answered in an uncharacteristically subdued voice.

Loki was unmoved. The conversation was beginning to feel familiar. "You cared little for my other claims."

"What other claims? To Asgard? You were given the throne while Father slept, Loki. That was the extent of your so-called claim. Do you care nothing about what you did when you _had_ the throne? About the devastation you brought to Jotunheim ?"

"And I'll ask you again, since when do you care what happens to the Frost Giants? Have you confused the definitions of 'ally' and 'enemy'? Did you keep count of how many _you_ killed during your last little visit to that wasteland? Do you even remember your last words there? Something to the effect of, 'We'll finish them'? Perhaps I misunderstood, but I was certain you meant you wanted to kill them all. Oh, that's right, I'd forgotten, you've _changed_. Your three days in this quaint little realm tamed your bloodlust. Perhaps I should stay here after all, then. Do you think your precious Earth will tame me as well? Turn me into a spineless-"

Thor shot up from the bed and grabbed Loki, lifting him and pinning him against the wall with two giant fists pressing into his shoulders; Loki's nearly empty glass fell onto the floor but did not break. "Do not compare us, Loki. I've made mistakes. But this…this…to try to destroy one realm, to try to enslave another…"

Before Thor could figure out what exactly it was he wanted to say, Loki started to laugh. Flames shot through his chest and right shoulder but it felt _good_ in some perverse way, reminding him what was reality and what was Thor's fantasy. "_There's_ the brother I know and hate," he said through his laughter. "Just when I was beginning to grieve for _you_."

Thor grit his teeth – Loki saw the jaw muscles moving – and released him.

Loki smoothly retrieved his glass, set it on the cart, took a new one, and filled it from the bottle of Johnnie Walker. He took his place back on the bed, cross-legged, as though nothing had happened. Thor followed after a moment, and the two sat in silence for a while as Loki nursed his drink.

"You said you wanted me to go home with you," he said after some time had passed.

Thor, who'd been staring vacantly ahead, turned to look at him but said nothing.

"How did you want me to go back to Asgard?" Loki was still staring straight ahead himself, but he could easily see Thor out of the corner of his eye, and he watched him closely.

"Willingly," Thor said after a moment. "Not like this." He waved a hand toward Loki's shackles. "Before things went too far."

Loki turned his body fully, putting his back to the door and facing Thor directly. He lifted his wrists. "These weren't made on Midgard. And Mjolnir didn't take you to Asgard and back in the few minutes you were gone from Stark's building."

Thor faced forward again and did not answer.

"So you came prepared. In case I was _un_willing."

"Which you were," Thor responded with a sharp nod. "Will you find fault with me there as well, Brother?"

"And how long did it take the All-Father to prepare this gift for me? This and the gag your captain kindly relieved me of?" Loki asked.

Thor closed his eyes and shook his head. "I don't know, Loki. I wasn't involved in it. He gave them to me when he sent me here, in case I had need of them."

Loki watched and waited, but once Thor's eyes opened his expression remained otherwise unchanged. It was entertaining, in its own sad little way. The fool had no idea these items were prepared well in advance of his arrival on Midgard. Loki wondered just how far in advance they _had_ been prepared. His shape and size had changed little since around age 22 when he'd reached his full height.

He sighed and stood, downing the last of his drink at the same time. He refilled the glass, leaving perhaps a fourth of a glass in the bottle, inspected the contents of the cart, and brought both the bottle and the glass back to the bed where he sat again. When the glass was empty he brought the bottle to his lips and drained it, feeling Thor's eyes on him.

"Get me another."

"You're in no position to make demands."

"I'm not demanding a _realm_, Thor. Just another bottle of this…Johnnie Walker. Blue Label. I hardly think it's too much to ask." He paused for effect. "In light of what's to come."

Thor had the decency to avert his eyes as guilt flashed on his face. Loki knew Asgard was better than here in Manhattan, near the scepter, but _both_ knew nothing pleasant awaited him in Asgard. A minute or two later Thor stood.

"Perhaps several bottles. They use such small containers here."

Thor frowned and repeated his palm-to-door routine. _Plan #3 for escape. Smash bottle over Thor's head. Slash his neck with the broken neck of the bottle. Press his limp palm against the door. Use him as a shield to get out of the building. _Loki watched him leave and waited without moving for him to return.

"Tony was reluctant to provide more than three bottles," Thor said when he did come back. "Even though I assured him this would be nothing for the Aesir…for…for the Aesir constitution," he finished, glancing up several times toward the mortals' viewing point.

Loki had tensed at the near stumble, but relaxed once Thor recovered. It shouldn't matter, but it did; he didn't want these new little friends of Thor's, or anyone else for that matter, to know what he really looked like. Thor, the worst secret-keeper in the Nine Realms, hadn't told them, not yet anyway. But Loki had always known what birthday present he would receive from Thor as soon as he obtained it, without regard for when his actual birthday was.

Halfway through the second bottle, the continued silence had become almost comfortable. Loki felt warm, and the drink had relaxed him. There was security in Thor's presence, and Johnnie Walker helped him feel at ease with that fact. He was _safe_, or as safe as he could be under the unfortunate circumstances. Thor might threaten him with Mjolnir, but he wouldn't stand by and let _him_…do whatever it was he might desire to do in retaliation for Loki's failure.

And now that the silence was comfortable, he was also ironically comfortable breaking it. "Thor, enough of this. You must try this," he said, standing up and pulling another glass from the bottom shelf of the cart. He filled the glass and held it out to Thor.

Thor frowned – if frowns were words he would have recited a saga by now – but after a moment stood and took the two steps necessary to reach the cart. He accepted the drink and Loki actually smiled.

Metallic noise and buzzing suddenly came from overhead, through the metal grate in the ceiling. Loki could make out Fury's voice yelling in the background. Stark's voice then came through clearly. "Hey, uh, Thor, Loki can drink himself into oblivion if he wants, I don't really care as long as he's still neutered. But you're on the job."

Thor's and Loki's eyes met. Thor frowned and set the glass down on the cart. Loki sighed and walked over to lean against the door, leaving his own glass beside Thor's. He let his eyes drift closed.

"Brother…_are_ you in there?" Thor asked softly after the silence returned. He had gone back to the bed; Loki could tell by where his voice was coming from.

"I've always been in here," he answered. "You simply have a remarkable talent for seeing what you want to see." His eyes snapped open and his hand darted inside one particular fold of his tunic and yanked, the single green thread easily breaking and the knife pulling free. Before Thor could react it had buried itself to the hilt in the bed's mattress, in the small space between the thumb and pointer finger of Thor's left hand.

More noise, shouting, high-pitched squeaking came from the ceiling. "I thought you said you searched him, Thor," Fury said once things settled again.

"Any more knives, Loki?" Thor asked, sitting perfectly still.

Loki shrugged. His eyes were closed again. "I think that was the last one. This whiskey must be having more of an effect than I thought. My aim was off." His aim had been perfect. And he was fairly certain Thor knew it.

Loki made his way through more bottles, while his knife – truly his last one – made its way into a sheath in the side of Thor's boot. He opened the fourth bottle, the last one they had, poured a glass, and breathed in deeply. He could almost imagine he could breathe smoke from his own nostrils. "Your hospitality is drying up, Stark," he said, exhaling his imaginary smoke up toward the metal grating.

When that bottle was gone, he shouted "Another!" and threw it hard against the mirrored wall, shattering it, and yes, there was the hidden camera. No longer so hidden anymore. Some kind of transparent material, a thick reinforced plastic of some sort, remained there, and the room beyond was dark, but the lens of the camera was discernible if you were looking for it. Loki was.

Thor bolted up and went into battle stance, his right hand reflexively gripping for Mjolnir, though he somehow had sufficient good sense not to call it to his hand. Loki laughed. _Escape Plan #4! Make Thor call Mjolnir through the wall and walk right out through the holes it makes on its way here._

Loki was still laughing when more bottles were delivered, signaled by a knock on the door. He reached for them and Thor gave him one, which he proceeded to open and drink from, foregoing the glass entirely.

/

* * *

/

Loki sat up woozily, squinting his eyes against the harsh lighting. As the fog over his mind lifted slightly, he took in the empty bottle on the floor beside his narrow bed. He began to remember where he was and what had brought him here. He noted the absence of broken glass; someone must have swept it up and removed it. He glanced around the room, then looked more carefully a second time and a third, even though it wasn't as though he could have missed anything in such a small open space. He noted the absence of Thor. Anger bubbled up and sought an outlet, but something was dead inside him. He looked down at the shackles on his wrist, and he remembered the entirety of his ability to use magic had been suppressed. He'd been in a deep sleep, perhaps even unconscious, surrounded by mortals who likely did not have the means and definitely did not have the will to defend him, and virtually powerless to defend himself. He'd even given up his one remaining knife to Thor. To _Thor_. Thor was walking around somewhere with _his_ knife in his boot.

He eyed the cart. There were two unopened bottles of Johnnie Walker on top. Given how much he remembered, given how much he was still able to _think_, clearly he had not drunk enough, Loki decided. He made a quick trip to the toilet, then settled down with Bottle Number Whatever, full of smoke and leather and peat and hopefully amnesia.

/

* * *

/

When Loki next woke, Thor told him, "Good morning."

Loki had to take his word for it; they were in a windowless room several stories underground. A brief moment of unpleasantness in his stomach followed, but quickly passed, except for a moderate headache that for the moment largely blotted out the myriad other aches and pains. Loki steadied himself and reached inside his own head to heal himself, but he could not. Everything came rushing back again. Thor's absence. Thor's presence. A chair had appeared at some point, and Thor had been sitting on that while Loki had sprawled on the bed. Loki stood and walked over to Thor, who watched him steadily, looking somewhat refreshed. "Where were you?" Loki asked.

"I had to go out for a little while. You were asleep."

Loki breathed deeply. He could smell the whiskey on himself. But he could also smell some kind of unfamiliar food on Thor.

Hatred welled up in him but he forced his face into an expression of indifference. "A thousand years have passed and nothing has ever changed."

Thor asked what he meant, and other questions followed. Questions from Thor, but also questions from Fury and his minions. Loki never said another word. The next afternoon he stood next to Thor beneath Midgard's sun, manacles and gag in place, while those he'd fought against got to enjoy their triumph. That disagreeable moment was in seconds replaced with one even more so, as Asgard took form before his eyes, and along with it the stern visage of Odin.

* * *

/

_I'm hiding behind Thor at this very moment; he's vowed to defend me from frustrated readers! ;-)_

_But this time you get previews & excerpts - but this is a bit more spoilery than normal, so I'll put it at the very end. In the meantime, I put three "chapter one's" to stories I have in mind (and on my profile page) up on my blog - if you're interested, please read, and if you let me know your preference (however you like, in a review, in a PM, in a comment on the blog) and there's widespread preference for one in particular, I'll aim to focus on that one as my secondary story. (Beneath will always remain primary and written every day until it's complete.) The blog is indepthblog. wordpress. com (just remove spaces). But I can't make any guarantees, please understand._

_So, if you didn't want any spoilers for the next chapter, now would be the time to stop reading._

_Previews: Loki takes a trip at last, and Yggdrasil sends him exactly where he expected...well...almost; things on Asgard are not exactly as Loki expected them to be; Jane has some decisions to make when Loki doesn't show up in the agreed-upon time; Loki's time on Asgard comes to an end._

_Excerpt:_

The Einherjar advanced slowly toward him, but a little to his left. Loki tracked him with his eyes. When the man was just passing him to the left, Loki flew into motion, jabbing an elbow sharply into the man's side – armored so it did not harm but instead startled – then the straightened stiffened side of his hand into the guard's throat. The Einherjar's hands flew up to his throat, and Loki caught the grip of the sword the other man released to do so. The Einherjar fell to his knees gagging and Loki raced into the stream and through the curtain of water, emerging on the other side in water just above ankle-deep, in front of a wall of slick, polished light gray stone.

It wasn't really stone. It was magic, and Loki had discovered its secret over a thousand years ago.


	45. (44) Falling

**Beneath**

**Chapter Forty-Four – Falling**

Loki had always enjoyed traveling. Whether it was through an established portal or the bifrost, or even just a journey exploring Asgard itself, he'd relished the thrill of discovery and adventure, and, when he was still a boy, even the small but electrifying undercurrent of fear that accompanied every departure from the familiar surroundings of his own existence. There'd never been any serious concern behind the fear, because his family – the word, the _concept_ rankled him greatly now – and a retinue of guards had always been there to protect him.

Loki had never traveled like this before. And the old undercurrent of fear was back, though it had nothing to do with stepping outside the comfortable boundaries of home. Quite the opposite, in fact. He was returning to those boundaries, though they were no longer comfortable, and they were no longer home. They were full of betrayal and lies. They were fraught with danger.

More so than the last time, because he was in the process of defying the great Odin All-Father yet again.

As soon as he saw light, as soon as he felt something pull at his stomach, he made himself invisible, which, along with cloaking himself from Heimdall's view, should ensure he arrived in Asgard completely unnoticed. As expected – though he'd hoped he was wrong – he paid for it. The light was immediately overpowered by complete darkness, and Loki winced at the pain shooting up his leg, but tried not to move, uncertain how the structural integrity field would react to any big changes in position.

He felt dizzy, and disturbingly disoriented, with no sense of up or down or left or right, so dark he couldn't see his own outline even though he was not invisible to himself. It was nothing like travel via bifrost. Pinpricks of light then appeared, like tiny lasers burning into his eyes, and he blinked against them before he realized the lights were coming from his wrists, where electronic equipment was strapped on. His eyes quickly adjusted, and with his keen vision and concentration so deep it sent pain burrowing equally deeply into his head, he could just make out the edges of the tunnel he was racing through. It was maddening, watching branching tunnels appear and perceiving just the barest sense of their direction only once he was already far past them. A few tunnels seemed to lead off straight out to one side or another, while many others appeared oddly twisted and curved sharply away, all of them to unknown destinations. There were far, far more branches than there were realms.

Suddenly bright light burst through and blinded him and his stomach was doing things that made him clamp his mouth tightly shut, his eyes along with it. Then everything changed so quickly it was for a moment overwhelming. The light that had made it feel like his eyelids no longer existed quickly receded, and a roaring noise filled his ears. He _smelled_ something. He wasn't sure what, but it was familiar. Gravity returned, and another second or two passed before he realized that meant that the structural integrity field had shut off. And that meant he'd arrived. But accompanying the gravity was a strange sensation. His legs were not bearing any weight. He wasn't standing. Wind rushed past him in an odd manner. His eyes snapped open. He was falling. Fast.

His eyes darted around in a growing panic, assessing his surroundings in an instant. Rock, brown, jagged, an endless sheer wall rushed by in front of him. On his right, blue sky, darkening as he fell. On his left, the roar of the Grand Falls in front of the wall, with a backdrop of more sky. He knew exactly what would be there if he twisted around to see what was behind him. His controlled fall was quickly deteriorating into a chaotic and very much uncontrolled tumble. His wits came rushing back to him and he was amazed it had taken this long. He had not come here only to fall again, in the very same spot as before.

Falling was not actually much of a problem for Loki, once he calmed and steadied himself. He manipulated the particles at his feet, and while it took a little longer than he would've liked – levitating out of a freefall wasn't quite as simple as levitating off of solid ground – his direction was soon enough reversed. He breathed in deeply and tilted his head back to bask in the sun's rays.

His next priority was to make sure Pathfinder wasn't able to rip him back for a return trip through Yggdrasil to the icy desert he'd left behind. There would be time for a more permanent solution later, but for right now he simply reached into his satchel for the RF switch – his hand brushed the crinkly packages Jane had stuffed in there for him to deliver to Thor and his lips curled in disgust and loathing – and toggled it, turning off the signal from the transmitter strapped to his wrist.

As he rose higher, the scene before him began to look familiar, though from the infrared imagery from Jane's probe rather than personal experience. Yggdrasil had tried to send him exactly where it normally sent travelers to Asgard: the bifrost observatory. The problem, of course, was that the observatory no longer existed, so he'd "landed" on air. The end of the bifrost was uneven but smooth, not jagged as he remembered it from his last view; they must have made some progress rebuilding it with the tesseract, but not much, since it didn't appear much longer. He crested the end of the bridge, and the spires of the palace far beyond it came into view. He glanced to the left, remembering the blotches of red and orange, but saw nothing there suggestive of such a powerful heat source. His gaze was drawn back to the right, across the bridge and its mammoth gates, to the little wooden building ringed with guards too far away to be seen clearly but there nonetheless, where the tesseract was now kept.

He stepped carefully onto the bridge itself; it was as sturdy as it always had been, no matter the damage done to it. Here Thor had dangled over the edge. Here Odin had stood and spoken his final words of rejection. Here he had stripped Heimdall of his citizenship – he wondered now if they'd ever given it back to him, or just ignored that order as they had all his others. Here Heimdall had stopped him and Thor and Thor's friends, but not for long enough – no, Thor had gone for the direct approach, and Heimdall would of course accept anything Thor said without argument, and off they'd gone to Jotunheim on a fool's errand, to the ruining of what little was left of his life. It occurred to Loki then just how much of this was Heimdall's fault, Heimdall and that incompetent guard, who'd probably decided to stop by the nearest tavern for a tankard before bothering to carry out his order. But it was also Heimdall who'd allowed the Idiots Three and Sif to go after Thor in blatant violation of his command, and if that hadn't happened, he wouldn't have been forced to send the Destroyer to kill Thor, and Thor would have lived out his days happy in his mortal skin – with Jane, he thought with a sneer – for who knew how long, while Loki consolidated his power over Asgard. A Frost Giant on the throne of Asgard. Everything his father – everything _Odin_ had never wanted.

More memories, older ones, flooded back as he picked up his pace. Adventures, "family" journeys, field trips through the bifrost to other realms. Games invented to take advantage of the way the bridge lit up in response to pressure – running, skipping, jumping, throwing things, bringing animals. After he'd mastered – or so he'd thought – making himself invisible, he'd discovered a weakness here, when Heimdall had called him out with another of his impertinent remarks after seeing the bridge light up in response to his invisible feet alighting from his horse. He'd learned from that, of course, and now knew how to negate the force of his own body so that he would leave no footsteps in sand or snow, or light up the bifrost.

He didn't bother with that, now. The bifrost was dead, and would not have lit up under Volstagg's footsteps.

Loki reached the point where the bridge at last intersected with land, and it was glorious land, with tree-lined streets and colorfully blooming gardens here and there as far as the eye could see, growing in actual dirt. He'd never imagined it was possible to miss _dirt_, but he hadn't seen any since McMurdo, he realized_._ He also realized now, though, that Asgard did not feel right. He'd seen the guards surrounding the makeshift observatory – had counted them reflexively, the ones seen and the ones unseen that Loki detected nevertheless, for it was a tempting target – and he now walked past two sentries standing ceremonious guard over the broken bifrost. But otherwise, although it was daytime, the streets were nearly empty. He was grateful for it – maintaining invisibility was difficult in a crowd – but at the same time found it slightly unnerving. He passed two young women, heads bent together whispering as they hurried in the opposite direction. It seemed there were more Einherjar out on sentry duty as well, but it could have been simply that they stood out more in the otherwise empty city. _Surely no one here is _actually_ concerned about an attack from Jotunheim. The giants must be greatly diminished, and they do not even have the means to leave their realm._

Loki's planned route did not take him past Central Market, but he made a slight detour out of curiosity, passing a large planting bed with nothing but a few trampled remains of dead flowers in it; a great crowd must have passed through here recently. The market, he found, was closed. He could remember only a handful of occasions when that had happened. Thor's would-be coronation. Thor's twentieth birthday. Baldur's funeral rites. Not yet officially judged guilty, he'd been released from his prison cell to attend the ceremony; he'd already been unofficially judged guilty, though, and if the thoughts of those who stared at him could have been turned to reality he knew he would have died a thousand horrific deaths that day.

His stomach clenched at the memory…and at the thought that some other terrible thing could have just happened here. But then he chilled his heart against it. If something terrible had happened, it was no concern of his. And for all he knew, Thor could be inside the throne room being crowned at last at this very moment. He laughed darkly at how deliciously ironic it would be if he marched right into the palace and showed himself – a Frost Giant turning up to ruin his coronation yet again.

He did not turn back toward the palace, but instead continued through the city and beyond it. His path and Asgard's had diverged, never to meet again, he thought, then revised it – his path and Asgard's had never been the same in the first place. Parallel, perhaps, for a time, close enough together to appear to be one and the same from a distance, but never touching, not really. Throat tightening unacceptably, Loki focused on his current path, following a well-worn trail through a rocky field, into a light wood that appeared to have been damaged by a recent storm, until he found the stream he was looking for. The terrain became moderately rugged as Loki followed the stream uphill to its source, a waterfall that tumbled over a ledge perhaps three times his height. In his youth the land had seemed almost mountainous and the waterfall had seemed as tall as the palace.

He stepped down carefully on the slippery rocks and pebbles, some of them wobbling and clacking together as he moved, and raised a hand to divert the water from above so he could step through the side of the falls without drenching himself.

"Who's there!" a deep voice suddenly called out from somewhere behind him, not far away.

Loki froze. He hadn't seen anyone around. But then, he hadn't been particularly looking for at least the last two hours.

"What is it?" another voice called, further away.

"I heard something."

"You've been hearing things all day."

"I'm telling you, I heard something."

Loki felt one of the rocks he was standing on shift as it sank a little under his weight. He reached out to steady the rock but it was too late; it shifted further and sent the toe of his boot forward, thudding against another rock and causing more clacking.

He heard a heavy thud behind him and twisted his neck around to see an Einherjar guard moving toward him from the base of a large tree. The man, who looked vaguely familiar to Loki, held a sword in his right hand and a ram's horn in his left.

_Since when do they guard this portal? Since when does anyone even know about it?!_ he shouted at himself. If he'd known, he could have muffled his sounds, negated his weight on the ground, slipped past without anyone ever suspecting someone had been there. He evaluated his options quickly, as the Einherjar was approaching equally quickly with a sword pointed in his general direction. Retreat – preferably by levitation, so there would be no more risk of giving his position away. Continue – quickly, counting on whatever element of surprise he could still muster. He'd discovered another pathway to Svartalfheim, but it was far from here, in the mountains, and Loki had already spent hours reaching _this_ one. _Continue_, he decided, holding himself so still he didn't even allow himself to breathe.

The Einherjar advanced slowly toward him, but a little to his left. Loki tracked him with his eyes. When the man was just passing him to the left, Loki flew into motion, jabbing an elbow sharply into the man's side – armored so it did not harm but instead startled – then the straightened stiffened side of his hand into the guard's throat. The Einherjar's hands flew up to his throat, and Loki caught the grip of the sword the other man released to do so, pulling it into his own invisibility. The Einherjar fell to his knees gagging and Loki raced into the stream and through the curtain of water, emerging on the other side in water just above ankle deep, in front of a wall of slick, polished light gray stone.

It wasn't really stone. It was magic, and Loki had discovered its secret over a thousand years ago.

Loki tossed the sword from his right hand to his left, and with a quick motion changed the wall to something permeable and charged forward on his throbbing right leg…only to slam into the stone so hard he yelped in shock and pain as he stumbled backward, falling into the pool of water at his feet, water pounding over his upturned face and spray slowly soaking the rest of him. He jerked forward, getting his face out of the water.

"Haeringur, what happened?" someone was shouting, the voice that had been more distant. Even through the noise of the waterfall Loki could tell it was much closer now.

"Something…something…can't breathe…creature…couldn't…see…," Haeringur sputtered in an unnaturally harsh, croaking voice.

A ram's horn sounded from behind him, a single clear note.

Loki pushed himself up out of the water, manipulating the sound waves to muffle his movements. Odin's curse gave him another gift of pain shooting up his leg in return and he barely kept himself upright and it was only by the finest threads of self-control that Loki held back from screaming obscenities at the top of his lungs. Apparently he was allowed to protect himself from discovery by SHIELD, but not by Asgardian Einherjar.

He reached out to touch the stone wall. _This_ was real stone, as it turned out. Luckily he also knew how to deal with real stone; unluckily, it would cost him more pain, and more magic. But he had no choice at this point. He heard splashing in the water behind him. Steeling himself for the pain he knew was about to take hold of his right leg for the third time in even fewer minutes, Loki stretched his right hand out over the stone and concentrated on changing it. It was more difficult than expected, stone and yet not stone. Modified stone. He clenched his teeth against the pain that shot all the way up to his hip. The stone resisted him and he redoubled his efforts. It occurred to him through the struggle that perhaps it was mere stone after all, and he simply had less grasp of the magic needed for his task. Something pricked at his shoulder blade and his hand began to tremble violently with the effort to get the stone wall out of the way.

"What- Stop right there!" an angry voice bellowed from just a few feet away.

The pricking got worse, growing to a slow burn. Two quick loud notes came from a ram's horn so close behind him he could feel the air rushing out its other end. He could turn and slice the guard nearly in half with the sword he'd taken off the other and he would literally never see it coming, but he was so close, so close-

The stone collapsed in on itself and tumbled to the ground, now dark silty water that disappeared into the pool. The Einherjar behind him jerked in surprise; Loki knew because he felt it through the sword tip buried in his back. With no time to spare, he tried again to make the stone – the not-stone – that now appeared before him permeable, tested it with the sword in his left hand, then threw himself forward as his right leg gave out.

He fell face-first onto cold stone, barely keeping hold of the commandeered sword, and heard pounding behind him, then shouting. Then more than one voice shouting. Haeringur wouldn't be shouting again for some time, so others had arrived. Gasping for air over the pain and the rush of adrenaline, he looked around at the rough dark walls, the small shafts of light piercing in at odd angles through cracks in the stone. Sufficiently oriented, he pushed himself up again and charged forward. The cave was smaller than he remembered and he kept his head ducked as he ran for its rear wall. If these Einherjar had been tasked with guarding the gateway, it stood to reason they would have been given the ability to enter the secret cave.

The sword went back to his right hand as the shouting suddenly grew louder. _Let them come,_ Loki thought with a growl deep in his throat as the back of the cave came into view. He leaned slightly forward, squared his shoulders, and dove for the wall that was already swallowing up his sword.

/

* * *

/

Jane waited behind the jamesway, trying not to constantly check her watch. It was hidden under layers of gloves and sleeves, and continually exposing the skin to get to it wasn't a good idea. _Especially with no Loki around to heal it,_ she thought, remembering how he'd basically just looked at her frostbitten right hand and restored its normal condition. She tried to imagine how he'd done that, in light of what he'd said about changing a pen's structure. _Can he change _cellular_ structure?_ She shuddered, for that was a truly scary thought.

Her chest was beginning to ache. She wasn't really cold – the USAP gear was good stuff – but she was breathing unbearably cold air into her lungs. She couldn't stay out here much longer. She unfastened and parted layers of fabric again and found that Loki had already been gone 63 minutes. Then she noticed the second hand wasn't moving. The extreme cold was rough on batteries as well as skin and lungs; her watch battery had given up the ghost. She arranged the material over her wrist, and realized that meant Loki had been gone _at least_ 63 minutes.

Loki had always been prompt. If he said he would meet her at 7:00 AM, he met her at 7:00 AM. If he said he would be back within an hour and he wasn't…he'd been lying. She'd known he might be lying, of course, especially when he agreed so easily to her amendment of his "within a day" proposal. Her face fell out of its scowl before it was fully formed. He'd been lying…or he'd never made it to Asgard. The structural integrity field had failed. Pathfinder had malfunctioned. He had wound up somewhere other than Asgard, somewhere he couldn't survive. He'd shown up in the middle of a war and his transmitter had been destroyed. She drew in a deep breath and grimaced as it burned her lungs.

Leaving Pathfinder where it was, she quickly returned to the jamesway, where the 28 degrees it was heated to felt like a luxurious sauna. She stripped off her outermost layer of gear and collapsed down on the bed nearest the door, just a bare mattress on a basic metal frame. They'd taken down the plywood "walls" to the first two bedrooms on each side early on to provide more of a work area, and pushed the beds back as much as possible to open up the space. It was hard to imagine people living here in the short summer season.

Jane squeezed her eyes shut and let her arms fall awkwardly over the sides of the bed. Now she didn't even know if Loki was dead or alive. She could use the sat phone all she wanted with him gone, but who exactly was she going to call? _Hi, Ms. Hill, sorry to bother you, I know you're busy, but you wouldn't by any chance happen to have any super-secret indicators on whether or not Loki – yes, that's right, _that_ Loki – is alive or dead, would you? Why do I ask? Well…._ Not for the first time, she wished she could just direct-dial _Thor._ She took another deep breath, followed by a cough over her painfully dry throat. _Thor wanted Loki to come here and learn _something_, and I sent him on an interstellar trip through Yggdrasil with a piece of barely-tested technology with an 84%-plus-or-minus-2% predicted success rate structural integrity field to keep him from being killed in transit. How's _that_ conversation going to go? Thor, it's so great to talk to you again, it's been so long, by the way, I _might_ have gotten your brother just a little bit killed._

She sat up and opened her eyes, staring straight ahead. She had decisions to make, and wallowing around out in the jamesway wasn't getting her anywhere. There was nothing she could do for Loki now. Absent other information, she would choose to assume that everything had gone well. That he'd made it safely back to Asgard, that he'd had something of a welcome reception – not _too _welcome, he'd hardly sufficiently paid for what he'd done on Earth, and certainly wasn't remorseful about it – that he was talking with Thor even now over Blueberry Pop-Tarts. She'd choose to believe he lied. He despised her along with the rest of humanity, and never had any intention of confirming for her that Pathfinder and Yggdrasil provided safe travel. He wove truth and lies together so regularly that she wondered if he even knew himself what the truth was anymore.

_But what if he _does_ come back? What if he has one of his little flickers of conscience and decides he should let me know he made it there after all? What if Asgard _is _at war and he's stuck in the middle of it? _She couldn't just box Pathfinder up and bring it in. She would need to leave it powered up – not a problem due to the arc reactor providing the power – and it was probably safer to leave it outside, as well. In that case, she'd need to cover it back up in its wood box casing to protect it from getting buried in snowdrift.

That left the question _how long_. How long to wait for him before assuming he wasn't ever coming back, how long to wait for him before deciding if he _did_ come back it wouldn't be for any good purpose and she wouldn't _want_ him popping back in, how long to wait before _finally _calling the cavalry, how long to wait before having an extremely uncomfortable station all-hands meeting to explain how Lucas had accomplished the impossible in disappearing from the South Pole in winter. It wasn't an easy question. She decided she didn't have to answer it now. She would give him at least a day. A day in which she'd take no action regarding him. Maybe more, but for now, at least a day. He'd avoided nearly all social activities here, so he wouldn't be missed, more than likely. She cringed at the sudden memory of trying to get him to dance with her at the sunset party, then remembered how he hadn't seemed to know any of the songs from the concert. Some of the weird things about Lucas were starting to make sense now.

Task in mind – protect and secure Pathfinder, go back into the station and act like all is well – Jane got up from the mattress with a frown and started tugging back on everything she'd pulled off. All of this was supposed to be over. He should have come back, told her everything worked, and left again. _The End._ Instead it was more like on pause. She reminded herself that the pause wouldn't last forever, that in fact it wouldn't last long at all. A day, maybe a little longer. Then _The End._

_/_

* * *

_/_

He should have expected it, he would think later. In the moment, however, there was no time to think. He was supposed to emerge next to an enormous fir tree in a dark, musty forest. Instead, as soon as he cleared the gateway, Loki was falling. Again.

Before his magic could halt his rapid tumbling descent, he'd collected several scratches and nicks. When he came to a stop, he saw he was hovering in a tunnel dug straight down into the earth – where the musty scent was quite strong – almost as wide as he was tall. It was a trap, and one meant to kill any prey who fell into it. Sharp metal blades protruded at various angles from the earth above and below him, and at the bottom, barely visible, five parallel blades spanned the width of the tunnel. He stared down at the death trap in dark fascination. No mutilated bodies rested atop those blades, so he was likely the first to fall into the pit. But how many people even knew this portal existed? Had someone on one side discovered it and done something to provoke someone on the other side badly enough that on the one side it was sealed by real stone and guarded by Einherjar, and on the other side a deadly trap was laid?

He remembered his own discovery of the gateway on Asgard, the stone that even in his untrained youth he knew wasn't really stone, how he'd thought about it almost constantly and experimented with it whenever he had the chance until finally almost by accident he'd stumbled through it…

_Startled and off-balance from his unexpected passage through what had appeared to be solid stone, Loki stumbled blindly forward a few steps and fell face-first onto a cold stone floor. He lay there a moment, stunned by the fall, and took in his surroundings – a large, dark cave, just enough shafts of light coming in through the walls to see its boundaries on his left and right and above him, but the back – if there was a back, instead of some other entrance perhaps a month's walk away – he could not see. He spun around into a sitting position to see the entrance _he'd_ used. Solid. Not an entrance at all. Loki's eyes went wide and he began to panic. It was a trap!_

"_Thor!" he shouted, his heart pounding. But Thor was too far away to hear him, rehashing war stories they'd both already heard a thousand times before with the group of boys they'd gone on this hike into the woods with, at least when Loki left them. _No one_ would ever hear him in here. He hadn't told Thor or anyone else where he was going, just that he was going to do some exploring, and no one had paid him much attention. No one would ever come looking for him in here and he would be alone forever and ever and he didn't have any food or water because he'd left that with Thor and there was no bed in here and there was no one and nothing in here and there was no Thor in here and he would die alone in here and-_

_He shoved himself up from the ground and practically threw himself at the wall he'd entered through. _Not a wall, not a wall! Magic!_ he shouted to himself as his hands went right through it and he stumbled out into the water and through the waterfall and into the sunshine again. His breaths came in trembling gasps and he'd never been so grateful to see the sky in his life. His gasps morphed into strange nervous laughter as he broke into a run, not even looking back at the waterfall hiding the magic wall, and he was halfway back to where he'd left Thor and the other boys when he had to stop, leaning against a tree and panting, because the laughter had turned into hitching sobs._

_When he finally got control of himself and calmed down – reminding himself he'd been trapped in that cave for all of two or three minutes at most – he went to the stream and splashed water on his face, cleared his throat a few times, then continued back to the clearing._

_He heard his name being called before he made it; it was Thor. He broke into a run. "Here I am!" he called, winding his way through the last trees to break into the open._

"_Hey, where were you? How'd you get wet? I was starting to get worried," Thor said, trotting up to his side, hooking an arm around the back of his neck, and squeezing downward._

_Loki knew better than to try to get away, and he didn't really want to this time anyway, so he let Thor drag him forward by the neck until he tired of it and let him go by a fallen hollow tree trunk they then sat down on. "I told you, I was out exploring."_

"_Find anything interesting?"_

"_Mmmm…maybe," he answered, not ready to talk about what had happened yet. "Where's everyone else?"_

"_Hogun and Ingi had to go back, so I told the others to go with them and I'd wait for you. I saved you some smoked meats, want some?"_

_Loki accepted the meat and some bread to go with it, while Thor told him everything that had happened while he was gone. Loki feigned interest – he _was_ interested, in some of it anyway, he was just distracted – until he found himself jerking away in pain with a finger poking him in the forehead. "Ow," he said, wincing._

"_Your forehead's turning red here," Thor said, in typical Thor fashion giving the tender skin another poke._

"_Stop it," Loki said, swiping at his hand._

_But Thor swiped back, and grabbed his hand, turning it over. "Your palm is all scraped up. What happened?"_

_And so, reluctantly, because he still wasn't really ready to talk about it but Thor insisted, he told his barely-older brother – they were both fourteen now, Loki just barely – everything that happened. Thor, who hadn't been very interested in the magic wall when Loki first discovered it, was now desperate to experience it for himself and explore the mysterious cave. Loki tried to discourage him but Thor wouldn't hear of it, and before long they'd packed up their few remaining provisions and set off for the waterfall, taking a circuitous route and throwing off their track the Einherjar guard who was somewhere out there keeping an eye on them, while Loki also hid them – he hoped – from Heimdall. He wasn't really sure yet if that particular skill actually worked._

_It didn't take Loki long to figure out what he'd been doing when he'd suddenly fallen through the wall – it would have taken even less time had Thor not been impatiently pestering him all the while – and soon they were inside. Loki stuck close to Thor, but the cave didn't seem even half as scary now that he wasn't alone in it. In fact, it seemed…like a cave. Just a regular old cave._

_Thor was disappointed, especially once they reached the back of it – it wasn't that deep after all – and complained that Loki had hyped his discovery into something more exciting than it was. Annoyed, Loki was just telling him that no, he'd simply described exactly what he'd found, no more, no less, when Thor huffed, put his back against the cave's rear wall, leaned back, and fell straight through._

"_Thor!" Loki called, much as he had a couple of hours earlier, and to about as much effect. _Another magic wall,_ he thought with a gulp, reaching out a tentative hand. His fingers passed right through it, without him working any magic at all, just as Thor had not. Had he paused to think about it, he might have realized that the wiser course of action was to go for help, in case something dangerous was on the other side, or in case they both were then trapped behind the wall with no way to get out. But he didn't pause to think about it. He couldn't leave his brother alone. He swallowed, took a deep breath, and walked through the wall._

_Thor was just picking himself up from the ground, and Loki stuck out a hand to help him up the rest of the way. He looked down, around, up, while Thor dusted dirt and dried leaves and dead fir needles from his face and clothes. They stood in a fairly dense forest, a few scraggly trees at perhaps giants' height, and the rest fir trees so tall their tips could not be seen. Sunlight made it to the ground only in diffuse misty patches. The air was musty and damp._

_Thor fell still, and Loki's hand found its way into Thor's. "Where are we, Brother?" Loki whispered._

_Thor shook his head, his eyes darting around and never settling on one thing for too long. "I was going to ask you the same thing, Brother…"_

Loki felt something wet on his left hand, pulling him back to the present. Wet and sticky. He held it up to see, and found a slow but steady stream of blood had been trickling down his arm. _Not just nicks and scratches, then,_ he thought, glancing upward again at the blades sticking out of the tunnel walls. As he thought about it, he realized his entire body was covered in stings and throbs and aches. He flexed his left hand, then the muscles in his left arm. The latter was painful, but he'd dealt with much worse. None of his wounds were anything more than annoyances.

His gaze fell downward again, toward the five blades at the bottom of the tunnel, perhaps a foot between each of them. His chest clenched more painfully than any of his various little injuries as for a moment he imagined what would have happened had Thor fallen through that wall into _this_, himself right after him. _His body might have cushioned my fall,_ he thought with a macabre smile, trying to displace his initial reaction. _And then how awkward it would have been for poor Odin, once Baldur came along, to have to explain to all of Asgard why I was being passed over for the throne in favor of the youngest._

Of course, that was unlikely to have happened; they would both have plummeted to their deaths down this hole. _And how different the Nine Realms would be had _that_ happened…_

"Enough of this," Loki muttered. He'd spent enough time lost in thought in some giant dank hole in the ground. If any Einherjar followed him, he'd be dodging them as they dropped to their doom. And if any kind of alarm system had been incorporated into this little trap, someone would be arriving soon to check on the ensnared prey. He ascended slowly, carefully, mindful of the spikes along the way. He tested the ground beside the vertical tunnel before resting his full weight on it. The forest looked little different than it had in his youth. His eyes went reluctantly but inevitably, as if pulled by magnetic force, to the trunk of the fir tree that was somehow still standing tall and straight, despite the enormous pit excavated right next to it, surely depriving it of some of its roots. _It isn't there anymore,_ he thought, sadness and satisfaction mingling peculiarly inside him. It had been a millennium, after all. Things changed. Even magic things.

Then his eyes dropped lower, and there it was, carved into the smooth bark at his height at fourteen, a simple "L." He had insisted they mark it, instead of recklessly charging off into the unknown, as Thor had wanted. _Some things _never _change._

Loki glanced around him, easily getting his bearings. He'd visualized this moment so many times while waiting for it at the South Pole that he would know exactly where to go even if blindfolded. For unlike that first trip through a secret magical gateway, Loki knew exactly where he was now.

Svartalfheim.

/

* * *

/

"Hey, where's Lucas?"

"Huh?" Jane asked, startled out of her thoughts. She was sitting in the galley, supposedly having dinner, mostly staring into space. "Oh, uh, I don't know, I mean, he doesn't always tell me everywhere he is. Or what he's doing." Jane blinked heavily. _Act normal! That deer in headlights has got nothing on you, Jane._

Austin nodded. "Okay, well, when you see him, will you tell him I'm looking for him? We're trying to set up a darts tournament tomorrow night, and he's one of the best here. Don't tell him I said that, though."

"Okay, sure. So…he was really good at it?"

"Yeah," Austin said, eyebrows stretching upward. "He couldn't even get the dart into the dartboard at first, and he said he was out of practice or something, but man, by the end he was hitting bull's eyes and triple 20s almost every time."

"I'll tell him, Austin, but I think he said something about working tomorrow."

Austin rubbed his new beard and grumbled good-naturedly, vowing to track Lucas down and drag him to the darts tournament, and left after a few more minutes of chatting.

_He probably cheated,_ Jane figured. _"Changed the structure" of the dart, or the air, or something. "Can't let the little mortals win in their silly Midgardian games!" _she thought, mimicking his voice in her mind. Cheating or no, she remembered he'd said he had fun playing darts. He hadn't _seemed_ like he was lying…but then again, who knew?

"Hey, Jane, you still up for volleyball tonight?" Mari asked a little later, dropping into the seat opposite hers. She didn't have a tray with her.

Heavy blinking again. Deer in headlights again.

"Did you forget? 7:00."

"Uh, yeah, I guess I kind of did…" She'd forgotten virtually everything over the last few days. Everything except Loki and the task of getting him off of Earth and back to Asgard where he belonged in the first place.

"Can you still make it? It's awesome to have some more girl power on the team."

"I'm not sure 'girl power' is exactly what I bring to the team," Jane said. If her scientific career finally went belly-up, volleyball player was not exactly going to make a solid fallback career. On the other hand…it was time to forget about Loki now, and immerse herself back into normal station life. "Okay, though, yeah, let's do it. We bring it," she said, putting up her right hand.

"We bring it!" Mari repeated enthusiastically, putting her hand up too for a high-five.

Jane gave up on her cold dinner and headed back to her room to change clothes, eyeing the door two rooms down from hers as she made her way down the berthing wing corridor.

* * *

/

_Alt title for this chapter, borrowing from a review from "clandestine elegance": "Loki is on the Move." ;-) Thank you again, BTW, for all the reviews and comments. And Guest 4/21 ("Please, please update this amazing story soon..."), double-portion thanks to you, you wrote review #500. WOW. I still remember how excited I was to get the very first review - proof that someone's actually reading this thing!_

_For those of you who like to think about these things, from the last chapter, any thoughts on why Loki voluntarily gave up his last knife and why he wanted to get drunk when he normally doesn't drink?_

_Previews of Ch. 45, "Bargains": __Loki assesses his circumstances, and undertakes some bargaining...but he's not the only one who's doing so; Jane hits the books. Oh, and Loki has a "he's taken Big Red with him" moment.  
_

_And excerpt:_

Loki pulled on the fresh tunic – "fresh" being a relative term, he was looking forward to having it properly laundered – and tucked it in at the waist. He put the suitcase away, then turned to the sword he'd rested beside him on the rock. In its design and in the precise shape of its blade, to anyone who paid attention to such things it was identifiably the sword of an Asgardian Einherjar. Loki had friends here – "friends" also being a relative term, and probably not quite what Jane would mean by the word – but he also had enemies. A sword could prove useful, but being seen with _this_ sword could prove dangerous. Einherjar did not leave Asgard in official capacity unless it was for guarding the royal family or for war. Loki tucked it away to join the suitcase.

He turned next to the thin rectangular metal casings with their tiny red lights, strapped to each wrist, and quickly slid the elastic bands off. He placed them on the ground. He stared at them. He lifted his right foot, felt it throbbing with the abuse it had taken at the hands of non-Odin-approved magic. He brought his boot down.


	46. (45) Bargains

**Beneath**

**Chapter Forty-Five – Bargains**

Once he was a brisk half-hour's walk away from the fir tree and the pit, Loki found a resting spot in the form of a large mostly smooth black rock half-buried in the ground, at a slight angle that would have been reasonably comfortable for sleeping, for a rock, if Loki had wanted to sleep out in the forest, which he didn't.

He first inspected his left arm, and found a deep gash along its length, shoulder to elbow, partially hidden by the tatters of the green sleeve that were now sticking to the wound that still wept a little in places. He untucked the tunic and pulled it slowly over his head, feeling it catch on a few smaller cuts, then pull painfully at the deeper one in his right shoulder. He twisted his arm around and stared at it in frustration. These were hardly the ideal circumstances for healing. A healing stone would have made it simple; it was specialized, pure, focused magic, ideal for wounds like this. Without it, Loki would have to first clean the dirt and cloth from the wound, preferably with clean warm water, and _then_ heal it. Missing a cloth fiber here and there would prove more painful later on than simply leaving it as is for the moment, so he applied the most basic of field medicine techniques and ripped his tunic into strips with which to wrap the arm. The shoulder wasn't as bad of a wound – deeper but more localized, probably much cleaner. But he couldn't see it, and was loathe to attempt any healing without actually seeing the injury. There were of course ways around that – there were ways around just about everything – but he was only stopping for a quick examination, to prepare himself for the next part of his journey. The sun was beginning to set here.

He spread his hands out close to each other in front of him, then hesitated, then grimaced to find himself examining his motivation. _Would you punish me for not wishing to parade around half-naked, dear Father? _He drew the suitcase he'd purchased in Sydney out of the air, opened it, and eyed the dark purple tunic he'd worn when he was first exiled to Midgard. Better not to be in green, anyway. Until he reached his objective, he would need to keep a low profile. He couldn't stay invisible forever – it was a drain on his energy in a way that shielding himself from Heimdall was not, and it seemed to be draining more energy than normal now.

Loki pulled on the fresh tunic – "fresh" being a relative term, he was looking forward to having it properly laundered – and tucked it in at the waist. He put the suitcase away, then turned to the sword he'd rested beside him on the rock. In its design and in the precise shape of its blade, to anyone who paid attention to such things it was identifiably the sword of an Asgardian Einherjar. Loki had friends here – "friends" also being a relative term, and probably not quite what Jane would mean by the word – but he also had enemies. A sword could prove useful, but being seen with _this_ sword could prove dangerous. Einherjar did not leave Asgard in official capacity unless it was for guarding the royal family or for war. Loki tucked it away to join the suitcase.

He turned next to the thin rectangular metal casings with their tiny red lights, strapped to each wrist, and quickly slid the elastic bands off. He placed them on the ground. He stared at them. He lifted his right foot, felt it throbbing with the abuse it had taken at the hands of non-Odin-approved magic. He brought his boot down. To the right of the electronic parts. _What does it hurt to keep them? _he thought. It wasn't an option he had any intention of ever using, but options, in and of themselves, were never bad to have. The devices joined the sword and the suitcase.

He was left with only his satchel. He took a deep breath, then lifted it slowly for inspection. He found one small cut, so shallow it had not even fully pierced the leather. He breathed a sigh of relief. Of his various options, he preferred _this_ one to a return to the frozen desolation of the South Pole…or to Jane. Her face flashed before him, with that look of concern that had somehow induced a sense of guilt in him. He'd dropped his childhood best friend from the sky trapped in a cage and hadn't felt any guilt over _that_. He'd vowed not to ever let himself feel it again over anything. And he'd felt it over some simpering look of a worried mother hen. Over a lie. He'd been lying almost since the day he was born, apparently literally, what was so special about one more? Many others would follow it.

Loki raised his hands and this time, instead of drawing out or putting away an object from between them, he thrust the fingers into his hair and rapidly rubbed them into his scalp, as though he were washing his hair. The dark locks soon feel loose, slightly curled and unruly – precisely why he always kept his hair carefully smoothed back. What fell in his face he pushed to the sides, then smoothed it down against his cheeks as best he could. He looked a little different like this, he knew, though probably not enough to fool anyone who knew him. But that wasn't the goal; Loki hadn't been to this village at all since Thor had turned twenty and gained the right to use the bifrost, so it was highly unlikely anyone would recognize him anyway. Instead, Loki now hoped he could pass for one of the Dark Elves, many of whom had pale skin like his – and his had to be even paler than usual now after a month or so with no sunshine – and all of whom had elongated ears that ended in a point. Loki's ears were now fully covered.

Changing superficial aspects of his appearance – such as giving himself a pair of slightly wrinkled long ears – would have been simple, to put it mildly. However, Loki did not wish to endure yet another surge of pain in his foot and up his leg and the concomitant siphoning of his magic, and he now suspected that any magic he used here in the furtherance of his goal would come at a price. He was going to have to go about this through other means.

Satisfied with what he'd accomplished, Loki made himself visible again, then stood and set off toward the nearest village, in a direct line now, unlike the route he'd taken from the tree. He reached Marheim in just under an hour, as the sun was beginning to set, circling it first and entering it from the road to the capital. The roads through Svartalfheim's dense forests were beset with bandits and trolls at night, and eager as Loki was to reach Brokk, rest and a chance to properly clean and heal his injuries needed to come first. He would need to face Brokk in peak form.

The problem was, if he wanted an actual room with an actual bed and access to clean water and privacy, he would need money. He suspected creating it from his personal magical treasury would be penalized.

The solution lay ahead, in a round squat building with a thatched roof, one of perhaps two dozen structures visible. He'd been to that building before, in his youth, but he'd not had the skills then that he did now.

Candles flickered in each of the long narrow windows, and inside, torches whose flames burned brighter as the sun set were placed in between the windows. Loki heard the singing even before he opened the door. After a single phrase – _Swords sing through the mist and cry for the throat _– he recognized the song. He knew all the songs sung by drunken men on Svartalfheim. This was a particularly raucous bunch; he had to take a quick step to the side on his way to the bar to avoid getting a large wooden tankard smashed into his face by an arm carelessly flung out toward him.

"Have you any rooms available for rent?" he asked the pale-faced young woman at the bar, long straight white hair tucked behind her long ears and flowing down as far as he could see.

"How long?" she asked, giving him only a brief glance as her eyes darted between the tankards she was refilling and her rowdy patrons. Her voice was light and pleasant, but Loki could already tell her personality was anything but.

"One night," he answered.

"We have one room left. Two hundred piras."

"Two hundred?" Loki repeated, shock and outrage in his voice. His voice would have been the same had she said anything but "free," but he truly _was_ shocked and outraged at this price. The last he recalled rooms had gone for twenty-five. Admittedly that was a very long time ago, and Svartalfheim was subject to inflation more than was Asgard, but this was almost offensive. "I wouldn't pay more than twenty for a tavern room in this tiny village."

"Tiny we may be, but night has fallen, and where else will you get a room? There's no other travel lodging here. Two hundred."

"And who else will you rent your _one_ room to? How many will I actually find empty if I go looking? I'll give you thirty."

"Were you left out at night as a child? The price is two hundred." The woman stepped out from behind the bar somehow managing over a dozen tankards and distributed them among her customers, who'd finished their song and were laughing and shouting indistinctly.

Loki sighed and waited for her return. He knew enough to know that she'd just called him stupid with her rhetorical question about being left out at night, but he'd never understood _why_ it meant that. He didn't take it personally. It was all a game, though not one played in jest.

A few minutes later she came back. "Ready to pay? Svartlin is a two hours' walk away. _They _might rent you a room for a hundred. If you make it there alive."

"How many of your patrons might put me up in their own chambers for far less than what you're asking?"

"Not many. But all right, I'll give you a special travelers' discount. One hundred fifty piras."

"Because I grow bored, fifty, and that's my final offer. I'll start asking among the patrons and I'll offer them the same."

She paused in her rinsing to look hard at him for the first time. "One hundred. Clean linens, fresh water, breakfast included. Accept this offer or leave."

Loki stared back at her. He could tell she was close to if not already at her limit, but he _thought_ he could knock her price down a little further yet. She had come down more than he had gone up. It would be a gamble, though, and he wasn't willing to gamble…not on this, anyway. He nodded; she set down her tankards and held out her hand for payment. Loki, of course, had precisely zero of the Svartalf piras to place there. "Give me a moment," he said.

"Village lords, I've traveled a long distance and seek respite in your soil," Loki said, after stepping up between two of the Dark Elves at the largest of the round wooden tables. "Would you grant me the honor of joining you? Perhaps we could engage in a few rounds of Skulls and Swords along with the mead?"

The others were all in various states of inebriation – some of them had to have been drinking since midday – and all seemed in high spirits. Loki was welcomed into their ranks, more mead arrived including a fresh tankard for Loki. He eyed the glass warily; with this he would have to take care. He began with a generous swallow, complimented the brew, then launched into a story that soon had the entire table guffawing and not noticing that he took only tiny sips henceforth and asked for refills when his tankard was still nearly full.

It was not long at all before the oval-shaped painted wooden chips were brought out, Loki playing poorly, and after a few rounds someone suggested wagering without any prompting from him. Loki's play improved steadily but not dramatically, and even were he not a master Skulls and Swords player, he would have easily beaten these drunken louts. One of them passed out over his chips in the middle of a round. _"Like candy from a baby,"_ as Barton had once said, when Barton's sole reason for living was to do his bidding. Loki had liked the phrase.

When he'd won all that he'd need, he excused himself and soothed any hard feelings by buying another tankard for everyone in the tavern. He paid the barmaid for the room and the mead – which was also costlier than expected but to a lesser degree – and allowed himself to be shown around to a door set out a few feet from the wall opposite the entrance. He'd been here before of course, but nodded politely as he was shown down the steep stairs and torch-lit corridor to his room, four doors down. The door was instructed to respond to him, the woman disappeared, and he was alone.

He opened the door, and somehow, irrationally, expected to see his chambers at the South Pole. This room looked nothing like the other. The bed was wider, made of sturdy natural wood, covered with a colorful quilt stitched together of perhaps a hundred unrelated scraps. The room itself was larger, though not by much. Everything from the furnishings to the quilt to the thick brown rug spoke of warmth and comfort. To Loki it felt cold and empty.

He went into the small but functional bathroom and returned with a glass pitcher of water. He sat on the bed, removed his tunic and bandages, and began to work on healing himself properly. It took more effort than it should have; Loki hoped it was because he was tired and had drunk perhaps three tankards of mead – not nearly enough to make him drunk, but possibly enough to interfere with his control of magic. But even if it was Odin's curse in action, that ultimately wouldn't matter. He only had to last until tomorrow. Tomorrow he would visit Brokk.

/

* * *

/

After volleyball, Jane showered and got ready for bed. Back in her room in her pajamas, robe, and slippers, she shivered a little from a chill caused by her wet hair and nudged the room thermostat up a little. She'd found that once she had a chill here it was sometimes hard to get rid of. She didn't want to climb into bed with damp hair, so she pulled out the chair at the desk and sat down, thinking perhaps she'd type up a response to Erik's last e-mail and have it ready to send when she got up and the satellite connection was open. She opened up a Word document, typed "Dear Erik," and had no idea what to type next. _"Dear Erik, So, the funniest thing happened, you'll never guess who's been here at the South Pole with me all this time…"_ She thought about various jokes she could make at her less-than-stellar performance at volleyball tonight, about how friendly and supportive everyone was anyway, about the movie that would be shown tomorrow afternoon. It all felt like a lie.

To tell him any of those things and _not_ tell him about Loki…it would be a form of betrayal, in a sense. She closed her laptop in annoyance. Today was supposed to be the day her life stopped being about Loki. But it seemed like she hardly thought about anything else. One of the best things about the volleyball match was that at times she actually had been distracted from wondering where Loki was, if he was alive and well, how she was going to explain Lucas's absence, when she should make a VOIP or sat phone call to SHIELD. _Slamming the ball into your own teammate's face and hoping to God he doesn't have a broken nose will do that for you._

Jane sighed. At least there'd been no broken noses. Not even any blood, actually.

She thought back to what had happened in New York, what she'd watched unfold on TV from Norway. The Loki who'd wiped out SHIELD security in New Mexico. Who'd tried to kill his own brother there, earlier. Who spoke lovingly of his mother, and so hatefully of his father. Who'd shouted like a madman for a crowd of people to kneel. Who lived here for nearly two months constantly manipulating her but without hurting anyone or demanding anyone kneel, until choking her in a fit of rage over deaths he denied any responsibility for. Who had occasionally joked with her, who seemed to genuinely enjoy learning the science and basic engineering she had to teach, who gave her a sound wave light show to demonstrate the workings of his sound barrier.

_Who are you, Loki?_

She remembered the mythology book Darcy had sent, back in those first few days at the Pole when mail could still be delivered. She'd always meant to go back to it again, but never had. She opened up to the table of contents, where she'd stuck in a piece of paper to mark the place, then turned to the overview of Loki in the book's first section. It began with a quote from a translation* of _The Prose Edda_:

"_Also counted among the Aesir is one whom some call Slanderer of the Gods, The Source of Deceit, and The Disgrace of All Gods and Men. Named Loki or Lopt, he is the son of the giant Farbauti. His mother is named Laufey or Nal, and his brothers are Byleist and Helblindi. Loki is pleasing, even beautiful to look at, but his nature is evil and he is undependable. More than others, he has the kind of wisdom known as cunning, and is treacherous in all matters. He constantly places the gods in difficulties and often solves their problems with guile. His wife is Sigyn and their son is Nari or Narfi."_

Jane reread it three times. Some parts reminded her of the Loki she assumed she knew from his earlier actions on Earth. "Deceit" certainly fit the Loki she knew here. Good-looking, yes, he was certainly that. Jane had never really looked at him in that way, but it wasn't like she was blind. Whoever drew the illustration of him from the 18th Century Icelandic manuscript on the facing page – in which he looked so creepy and malevolent that looking at it made Jane's skin crawl – obviously hadn't read that part of _The Prose Edda_.

And then there were the parts that made no sense whatsoever. He was taller than average, and certainly towered over _her_, but she'd hardly imagine him to be the son of a giant. Thor was taller. Besides, she already knew his father's name was Odin, and she'd never heard of Byleist or Helblindi – Thor hadn't mentioned them and they didn't come up in what she'd read of Erik's library book. She remembered then that Darcy had said there wasn't any mention of Loki and Thor being brothers in the book. Loki, as Lucas, had mentioned a sister but never said anything else about her; Jane suspected he'd made her up. Darcy had also told her he had three or four monster kids – she could only remember the one that was supposed to a serpent encircling the planet – but Sigyn and Nari or Narfi sounded like normal people, or at least she figured if they weren't the passage would say so. Maybe Sigyn was a monster and Nari was a serpent. But Jane couldn't imagine that Loki was married. "No woman in her right mind would put up with him," she said out loud, then wondered if maybe there was a Sigyn, and she was just as into world-conquering and world-destroying as Loki was.

She thought about Thor, and wondered what it must be like to have a brother known for being "the disgrace of all gods and men." She thought about Loki, then, and wondered what he'd first done to earn him such horrible titles. _The Prose Edda _was written around 800 years ago. Thor had made it seem like everything had been fine until very recently, but Loki had clearly earned a reputation a long, long time ago. Giant parents and monster children notwithstanding, there seemed to be at least a grain of truth in these myths. Maybe the giant parents and monster children were added to make Loki seem even more evil.

Jane's eyes dropped back to the book to skim the rest of the overview. It said that Loki was a shapeshifter and had taken the form of a mare, a falcon, and a salmon among other creatures. She was just feeling grateful that _that_ one didn't seem to be true when she remembered what he'd said about changing the structure of the pen, and how she'd seen him do the same thing to his jacket right before leaving. If he could change the structure of other objects, maybe he _could_ change his own structure, too.

Then came the monster kids Darcy had mentioned, and apparently changing into a mare hadn't worked out so well, and Loki would up giving birth to an eight-legged horse. Jane shook her head in complete disbelief. _On the other hand, if something like that happened to me, I'd be pretty cranky, too, and maybe develop a temper problem._

Then came Baldur's death. It was only briefly mentioned here, with no more detail than what she'd read in the children's book in New Mexico. _"Beyond all boundaries and against every law,"_ Thor had called it; she remembered his exact words. _That_ was centuries ago, he'd said. Wondering if it was what had earned Loki his unflattering titles, she flipped directly back to the story.

Baldur had been having nightmares, so Frigga had made people and even inanimate objects – _maybe they're animate on Asgard?_ – swear not to harm him, except mistletoe, which had been deemed too young to have to swear. So everyone apparently thought it was marvelous good fun to shoot arrows and throw stones at Baldur and watch them bounce off or fly over his head. _They must be hard-pressed for actual entertainment._ Loki was annoyed for whatever reason, and went off and made an arrow out of the mistletoe. He gave it to a blind man named Hodur, whom some texts also said was Thor's and Baldur's brother, and Hodur, not knowing what he'd been given, shot the arrow and killed Baldur. _"This misfortune was the worst that had been worked against gods and men,"_ the book quoted from _The Prose Edda_.* "The Disgrace of All Gods and Men," Jane breathed aloud. "No wonder." She felt awful for this Hodur, who must have been consumed by guilt, although he was blameless in what happened. How awful for Baldur's family. How awful for Frigg, to know she'd gone to such great lengths to protect her son and overlooked the one thing that was used to kill him. She wondered how – or _if_ – the woman had ever really managed to forgive Loki. Thor had said they didn't talk about it anymore. He'd also said his father punished Loki harshly.

She read on.

There was Baldur's funeral, involving burning ships put out to sea, and someone named Hermod – _another brother?_ – rode into Hell, or "Hel," to get Baldur back from the dead. Hermod asked Hel, one of the monster kids, to let Baldur go, and Hel agreed, but only if every single person wept over Baldur's death. Everyone did, except one giantess who refused, and whom people believed was actually Loki.

Loki fled, and turned himself into a salmon, and after a few tries, the other Aesir caught him and took him to a cave, apparently now in normal form. Jane's stomach churned violently when she read the next part, full of details that unsurprisingly had been left out of the children's book. The Aesir also captured Loki's sons, Vali and Nari, who apparently had nothing to do with Baldur's death. They somehow turned Vali into a wolf, and Vali disemboweled Nari, and they used Nari's entrails to tie Loki to some rocks, while a woman named Skadi secured a poisonous snake above his head to drip venom onto his face. Sigyn held a bowl over him to catch the poison, but when she had to go empty it and the poison reached him, he shook so violently that he caused earthquakes.

By the end of it Jane's hand was in a fist, the knuckles in her mouth where she bit down hard to keep from getting sick. That bit about the sons was an image she could have done without _ever _having pictured. If it were true…Loki would need to be in the Asgardian equivalent of a padded cell, with a straightjacket on. At least that's what she figured _she_ would need if something like that had happened to her. The phrase _psychotic break_ flashed into mind; she didn't really know what it was, she was hardly a psychologist, but it sounded like something that would happen after a punishment like that. _"Father punished him severely," _Thor said. Loki pretty clearly detested his father. Maybe this story was true…

But Thor didn't seem to think Baldur was the issue, she reminded herself, as more and more of that conversation in Tromso came back to her. He'd said he broke the bifrost to stop Loki from doing something terrible, and that he'd found out some things, but unless she was forgetting something, he'd never said _what_ Loki was trying to do that was so terrible, or _what_ Loki had found out. Then she remembered what he'd said yesterday morning…and could it really have just been yesterday morning? He thought he'd destroyed Jotunheim. He'd _tried_ to destroy Jotunheim. The metaphorical lightbulb went off and Jane would've bet her meager bank account that _that_ was the terrible thing Loki had done, what had happened after Thor and his friends left New Mexico for Asgard, the thing that had resulted in Thor being unable to keep his promise to return…at least in a timely fashion. _But what did he find out?_ she asked herself. _Something bad enough to make him attempt to destroy an entire planet, apparently_. _When Loki gets mad, Loki gets _mad.

Jane closed the book and put it away, finding yet again that she could only take its contents in small doses. She reminded herself again also that it was mythology, that much of it, perhaps even the majority of it, had no basis in reality. Earthquakes, for example, were caused by the shifting of tectonic plates, not Loki getting poison dripped in his face, and the shape of a salmon had nothing to do with Thor catching Loki by the tail when he was flopping around fish-shaped.

She wished she'd been able to Loki about these things, but he wasn't exactly forthcoming, and even if she had, some of the questions would surely have been hazardous to her health. The chance to ask him had passed. She hoped she'd get the opportunity to ask Thor. In the meantime, she decided it would be better to forget. Especially the part about the kids. A bad case of the heebie-jeebies hit her, and she realized _A Rose by Any Other Name_ wasn't going to be a sufficient distraction. She changed out of her pajamas and into cargo pants and her light green New Zealand T-shirt, added a sweater, ran fingers through her hair and found it already dry, and set out to find someone awake to chat with about absolutely anything other than Loki.

/

* * *

/

Hair again parted down the side to cover his ears, Loki emerged from his rented room rested, healed, and energized for the day ahead. He decided he should act with greater caution, after a dream in which he kept falling toward the blade-lined bottom of a pit. Just as his eyes crossed to converge on the blade he was headed for face-first, he'd woken up. _Did you manage to start a war in Svartalfheim, too, Thor?_ he thought. He didn't know what was wrong with him, that it had never occurred to him, even as he'd remembered their discovery of the gateway, that _Thor_ knew, not just Thor of the past, but Thor of the present. Thor could have gotten bored and gotten some bright idea to come through it to Svartalfheim. _I thought you'd _changed._ Perhaps not so much, hm, Brother? Still so easily angered, still so quick to raise Mjolnir or your fists. You've changed selectively, when it suits you. When it allows you to paint yourself as better than me._ It fit the facts, the unexpected guards at the cave on Asgard, the unexpected trap at the tree on Svartalfheim. _You came here and did something stupid, didn't you?_

He took the time to have breakfast – the meat was dried and heavily salted, but the eggs were fresh and the best thing Loki had eaten in months. He paid for his meal and left, headed for the tailor's shop he'd been told about. There he purchased a ready-made rough brown cloak – not nearly as warm as Big Red but plenty warm enough for the chilly mornings here. The cloak fell around his back and over his shoulders in front and down to his knees, for it had been intended for someone of lesser height. The hood obscured his face nicely, and a simple cloth knot-and-loop closure at the neck kept it all relatively secure.

Where Loki was going – commonly known simply as "the city" though formally sharing the name Svartalfheim with the entire realm – he risked being recognized, unlike in the village of Marheim.

The city was far away, too far to walk, at least for Loki's timetable. His next stop, then, was the stable at the edge of the village, by the black dirt road, where he and Thor had rented horses after their first unexpected visit here. "Village lord, good morning," Loki said to the man hammering nails into a wood plank at the front of the long narrow building. "I seek the stable-keeper," he said with a small tremble in his voice, coughing at the end. He had little money left, and hoped that if he projected the image of a poor, sick man, his required deposit might decrease.

"You've found him, traveler. But if you also seek a horse, you're out of luck," the man said, glancing at Loki but continuing his hammering.

"I have money, I assure you," he said, wondering if he'd perhaps overdone his appearance of poverty.

"All the money in the realm won't buy you what doesn't exist. Some things are simply unattainable." He finished securing the plank and turned to face Loki.

"You…you mean to say you have _no_ horses?"

"Not a one. Otherwise engaged now, I'm sure you understand."

"But I must have a horse. I have a long journey ahead."

"Then you should have timed your journey better. I can't help you."

"What-" Loki was distracted by a young girl, perhaps fourteen or fifteen, listing to the side under the weight of a full bucket. "If you have no horses, then why is that girl taking water inside the stable?"

The man turned to see what Loki was watching. When he turned back his dark face had softened. "My granddaughter Motta. She…it's difficult for her. We do have one horse. A mare. There was an accident, and she went lame. Hasn't been able to stand under her own weight. I'm going to have to put her down, but…Motta…"

"Don't you have an animal healer who can treat her?" Loki asked. The Svartalf loved their horses as much as the Aesir; Loki couldn't imagine they would put one down simply because of a bad leg.

"Otherwise engaged, of course. Where are you from?"

"No matter," Loki said, putting aside all thought of further questions. It didn't concern him, and he was in a hurry. "I have some modest healing ability myself. If I can heal her, I could take her off your hands, save you the effort of putting her down."

The stable-keeper considered it, absently tapping his hammer against his left palm. "A hundred piras and she's yours, assuming you can heal the leg."

Loki's jaw fell open. "You must be mad. You were going to put her down. I will pay nothing."

Whatever had been soft and friendly in the stable-keeper's face disappeared. "If you take ownership of her, you'll sell her and make a profit. It's only fair I should have a cut of it."

"Then I'll rent her. I don't need to keep her."

"Same cost for the deposit," he said, then continued before Loki could protest, the man's hard exterior fast giving way to the softness of a moment earlier. "Look…it's not for me. It's for Motta. Her mother, my daughter, died when Motta was a baby, and now her father's just been killed, and I have no more horses to rent. I'm ruined. And she-" He paused and cleared his throat. "I'll take seventy-five, not a pira less."

"I only have fifty," Loki said. He had eighty-four.

The man looked at him hard for a moment, then his expression shifted again and Loki saw him relent before he voiced it. Loki remembered this man, and remembered him as a much tougher bargainer. He followed the man – Vander, as he introduced himself – through the gate and into the stables, where only two bales of hay were stacked followed by stall after empty stall. In the last stall Motta was brushing out the coat of a brown mare with the small diamond of white between her eyes. The horse was partially supported by a white cloth sling suspended from the ceiling.

Vander explained the situation to Motta, and Loki sat on a stool by the mare's front right leg, in case he should be punished for healing the horse. He hadn't been punished for healing _himself_, but he would be using this horse to get to Brokk, to end this humiliating analysis of his actions and the resulting pain when his intentions were deemed less than noble. _I am attempting to heal an innocent creature, and providing funds for a poor orphan, dear Father, can there be anything more noble?_ It hadn't worked before, but it was worth a try, and there was truth in it, after all, he told himself.

Loki felt for the injury in the mare's joints, first without magic, then with, and his tentative efforts grew more assured when the pain didn't come. He breathed a sigh of relief and began healing torn tendons and ligaments – no wonder the horse couldn't stand on that leg. He had little experience with healing animals, but while this injury was severe, it wasn't anatomically complicated. It took him a little over half an hour before he told Vander to loosen the sling. The mare started to collapse down on her knees, but soon righted herself, and Vander then released her from the sling altogether.

"How did you do that?" Motta asked, and Loki turned to see her staring up at him with dark eyes widened in amazement.

"She was living in the city before. She hasn't seen this," Vander explained.

Loki barely registered his words. He saw Jane, staring in wonder at the representation of his sound blanket. And then he saw Jane, waking up in a healing room, her sick aunt telling her that her parents were dead, Erik Selvig stepping in to care for her.

He frowned and turned away from the girl to give the mare a final check of her leg. He didn't owe this girl any explanations. He hadn't owed _Jane_ any explanations. "She's well now, as you can see," he said to Vander, ignoring the girl.

Vander nodded. "She's all yours. You can give your payment to Motta, for taking care of her."

Loki nodded reluctantly and reached into his pocket, while Motta thanked her grandfather and grabbed a small burlap sack from the nail in the wall it had been hanging from.

"I've been calling her 'Star,' for the white star on her face. These are some root vegetables she likes," the girl said, handing him the sack.

"Thank you," Loki said, his stomach twisting as he took the sack. "I'll take good care of her."

"I know you will. I can tell," the girl said with a confident smile and a hint of sadness in her eyes.

Loki fought to keep his smile open and sincere. He wanted to jump on the horse's back and escape this place immediately. But he had to do this properly; he couldn't afford to attract any attention. He reached into his pocket and felt around until he'd separated five of the ten-pira notes there. The girl was still _looking_ at him. He grit his teeth behind his smile and pulled out all eight notes and handed them to her neatly folded, then gave the four coins to Vander. "I trust this will cover the reins." It wasn't like he needed the money, anyway, he'd only wanted to keep some for emergencies. Better to be rid of it; it would strengthen his motivation to ensure there _were_ no emergencies.

The horse was prepared with the simple reins, the girl said her goodbyes to the animal while Loki studiously ignored her, and then he was on his way, pushing the mare hard as soon as he cleared the village.

/

* * *

/

Loki had a grudge against Star by the time the outskirts of the city came into view. The mare had proven reliable and fast, but she had left him never wanting to sit again. Saddles were standard in Asgard; in Svartalfheim they were typically used only in battle. The road grew wider and traffic heavier, so Loki veered off into the trees until the road was no longer visible, then dismounted and left the horse to her own devices. He had no registration papers, just a bill of sale, so boarding her wasn't an option, not without far more time and effort than Loki was willing to give, and he didn't think he'd have need of her again anyway. Someone would probably claim her soon enough; Loki had noticed there were more elves on foot and fewer on horseback than was typical, and he surmised there was currently a shortage of horses beyond just one little village. He rejoined the road on foot.

Loki had been here many times, though less frequently in the last century or so. Still, he knew the main streets, the central structures, the main entrances to the underground lairs, and some neighborhoods he knew as well as he knew Asgard. He chose his route carefully, avoiding those areas where he was more likely to be recognized, despite his hooded brown cloak. He watched for security patrols, and showed great interest in something on the other side of the street when he passed one. They appeared a bit more vigilant than he recalled them being, but no one showed any particular interest in him.

Brokk's dwelling, in the outskirts of the city on its opposite side, was typical of the area, though larger than average. Three large, open rooms were above ground, and a long winding staircase circling along the wall starting near the door on the inside led down to two underground levels, both larger than the upstairs space. As he approached it, Loki noticed that the sealed bark-strip exterior appeared new, as did the tan thatched roof.

He lifted the brass knocker and banged it against the plate, adrenaline coursing through his veins. A minute passed and he knocked again. Someone passed by – the home was off of the main street and partially secluded by a large leafy tree, but he couldn't stand out here forever. He knocked a third time, nodding to the passer-by. By now, though, he was confident Brokk wasn't home. Loki's heart sank at the thought, and then he frowned and chastised himself. There was no reason to assume he _would_ be home. Although he did most of his work from here, he could be off on any number of errands now.

Then a truly harrowing thought struck. What if he were out traveling? Roaming the realms, seeking new magic, or simply visiting an out-of-town family member. Loki began to grow angry. First at himself, for his planning had never taken into consideration the possibility that Brokk would simply be gone, and then at Brokk, because he had no right to be anywhere but where Loki needed him to be. Loki's second choice was a hermit who lived in a dense rain forest a good five or six days' ride from here. And he'd set the horse free in the woods.

No. He would remain focused on Brokk. He could return home at any moment. But it wouldn't do for a stranger to be seen loitering in the area. _I wonder…_ Loki put his hand on the doorknob. It turned. He pushed. The door opened.

Brokk had never locked his door, whether with key or magical seal. Most people feared him far too much to even consider entering his dwelling without permission. Loki was not most people. He glanced casually around, found no one watching, and entered.

He stopped just inside the threshold, closing the door behind him. Brokk had to be in the area; even he would not leave his door unsecured if he expected to be gone for days or more, Loki suspected.

The ground level was much as he remembered, simple, minimally furnished, mostly with wicker furniture. The enormous, tightly hand-woven and patterned earth-tone rug, however, was new. Loki had bought a similar one for Odin and Frigga once, and knew how costly they were. Brokk, it seemed, had come into good fortune at some point in the last forty years or so, the last time Loki had visited.

The polite thing to do would be to wait on the ground level for Brokk to return. Loki had at one point in his life been a very polite person. Now he was merely skilled at pretending at politeness whenever it suited his purposes. He saw no need for it here, and descended the steps.

Along the corridor leading out from the first landing, swords, axes, and daggers were displayed along the wall. These were collector's items, Loki knew. Brokk occasionally _made_ weapons, all of them enchanted in some way, but he found actually _using_ them distasteful. Magic was his weapon, and he wielded it as well as anyone wielded a sword. His eyes roamed the display, and he selected two matching daggers, tested their weight, examined their blades, nodded, and slipped them through loops on both thighs, where they dangled by the guard. They were a little long for his taste, about elbow to wrist, but they would do, if the need arose. A large sapphire was embedded in each guard, and faint magic hummed along the blade's length. Loki wasn't sure what the enchantment was – Brokk neither made nor collected items that were that simplistic – but he wasn't terribly worried about that, either. If he reached the point where he actually needed to use them, he would have failed already. Brokk was no good to him dead.

Loki made his way down the corridor, pausing to look into each room as he went, not looking for anything in particular, but simply following instincts honed by centuries of battles real and simulated, and even more adventures, many of them ill-conceived, at Thor's side. In Thor's shadow.

The room at the far end of the corridor, Brokk's personal library, gave off a little more illumination than the others, he realized once he was about three-quarters of the way there. He kept a careful eye on it while taking quick looks into the last two rooms, each of which had a single magical candle flickering in a holder right by the door.

Five steps further and he was taking his first cautious steps into the library. The room opened up to the left, long and narrow, the walls lined floor to ceiling with bookshelves. Loki took minimal notice of them, or the additional bookcase that had been added since his last visit. His eyes were instead drawn immediately to the center of the room, where an old cushion-lined wooden bench, its back to him, was surrounded by perhaps fifteen white candles with tall narrow blue flames that didn't flicker, in shining silver holders. A head with pointed ears and topped in short white hair was just visible over the back of the bench, and not reacting in the slightest to Loki's presence. He'd approached in silence, but someone of Brokk's caliber with magic – and surely this was Brokk – should have sensed his approach regardless.

Loki's hands moved to rest lightly against the grip of the daggers at his thighs.

With slow, even steps he circled around the outer perimeter of the candles, Brokk coming into profile view as he went. His eyes were open, staring straight ahead. Loki continued, occasionally glancing away from Brokk to the rest of the room, and the doorway, to avoid any unpleasant surprises. Brokk was completely expressionless, his eyes open but unseeing; Loki stood right in front of him and Brokk still gave not the slightest reaction. He eyed the candles. Powerful unknown magic leapt from their flames, and Loki tried but failed to recall blue flame being used in anything Brokk had shown him in the past. The Dark Elf used candles for many things, and Loki had no idea what he was using them for now. Assuming he was alive, considering he hadn't so much as blinked.

He wasn't sure what the consequences might be, but after what seemed an interminably long time of standing there and staring into Brokk's empty eyes, he decided he would take the risk to find out. He drew a dagger just in case, and stepped carefully over the invisible line between the blue flames to get closer to Brokk.

He lowered his hood and pushed his cloak over shoulders to hang over his back more like a cape, then leaned in close, closer, closer, until his nose almost touched Brokk's and he could feel the other man's warm breath.

Brokk's eyes snapped open. Loki jerked back slightly and brought his dagger to Brokk's throat.

"Well. This is a surprise," Brokk said, his lips pulling slowly upward, his eyes steadily on Loki's as if the dagger did not exist. "I was just talking about you."

/

* * *

/

***Please note** this is indeed a translation; I didn't write it, or translate it. It's a very readable translation. I recommend it if you're interested in Norse mythology. **Citation:** Sturluson, S. (2005). _The Prose Edda._ (J. L. Byock, Trans.). New York: Penguin Group. (Original work published approximately 1220). (And yes, "namesarehardguys," that is APA.)

* * *

/

_Previews from Chapter 46 "Escape": Loki continues to be on the move...but not necessarily by choice; Jane tries to work things out with Selby...and as you might guess it doesn't go exactly as she'd thought._

_And excerpt:_

"What dark magic are you toying with these days, Brokk?" Loki asked, merely as an indulgence. Brokk had always cultivated an air of mysteriousness around himself, so Loki tried to ignore the voice in the back of his head that whispered that there was something suspicious going on here, particularly with this supposed conversation about him, which was possibly no more than Brokk's idea of a jest. [...]

"A relatively recent discovery. I would call it…escape. Escape from the body, escape from the physical realm, into the slippery pathways of the spaces in between. It's…life-changing, what one can find out there." Brokk looked back down at the idle white candles between them for a moment, then back up at Loki. "Would you like to give it a try?" he asked, his eyes narrowing and his mouth drawing into a smile that looked positively sinister and every bit the stereotype of the dangerous and crafty Dark Elf.


	47. (46) Escape

**Beneath**

**Chapter Forty-Six – Escape**

"Put that away, Loki. Your time among the mortals has made you uncivilized."

Loki held his position.

"I thought we had declared a truce. I don't go breaking into _your_ house and threatening to kill you with your own weapon."

The elf had a point. From Brokk's perspective, this looked bad, and Loki had come here needing something from him. But brinksmanship was nothing new between the two of them.

"I hadn't realized I was such a scintillating topic of conversation," Loki said, straightening up and pointedly slipping the blade back through the leather loops at his thigh. "You were so engrossed in it, I feared you dead."

"So you decided to test your theory by slitting my throat?" Brokk asked with a slowly widening grin, still not having otherwise moved. He glanced down at the dagger resting against Loki's thigh as Loki took a step back, still inside the ring of burning candles. "And thievery, Loki, tisk tisk. Your list of crimes just keeps growing, doesn't it?"

"You startled me. And I'll return them before I leave. Probably. They're beautiful," Loki said, relaxing a little, though his guard remained up. There was something familiar about this exchange now, agreeably so. Brokk had always kept him on his toes. He could almost forget everything that had happened since Thor's botched coronation.

"I won them in a bet on Ljosalfheim. The Light Elves always overestimate themselves. I should introduce you to the elf who created them. Though now might not be the most appropriate time." Brokk stood, and Loki cautiously backed up further, stepping outside the ring. Brokk looked down at one of the candles and blew; every cobalt blue flame died instantly.

"What dark magic are you toying with these days, Brokk?" Loki asked, merely as an indulgence. Brokk had always cultivated an air of mysteriousness around himself, so Loki tried to ignore the voice in the back of his head that whispered that there was something suspicious going on here, particularly with this supposed conversation about him, which was possibly no more than Brokk's idea of a jest. He had to remain on alert – he had learned through a number of painful experiences in his younger years that Brokk could not be fully trusted in anything except putting himself first – but whatever the elf was up to was none of his concern. Loki had something to accomplish here, and he wasn't leaving until he had done so.

"A relatively recent discovery. I would call it…escape. Escape from the body, escape from the physical realm, into the slippery pathways of the spaces in between. It's…life-changing, what one can find out there." Brokk looked back down at the idle white candles between them for a moment, then back up at Loki. "Would you like to give it a try?" he asked, his eyes narrowing and his mouth drawing into a smile that looked positively sinister and every bit the stereotype of the dangerous and crafty Dark Elf.

Loki ignored it; Brokk also like to cultivate fear in everyone around him. "Perhaps another time. I've brought you something I know you're going to like," he said, deliberately relaxing his posture, crossing his wrists in front of him so that his fingers did not brush the grips of the daggers.

"What's that?" Brokk asked, his eyes roaming up and down Loki's length, settling on the leather satchel he carried.

Loki instantly regretted not having concealed it. Even better would have been sending it to join the suitcase and other things, but he'd feared the effect of the changes required to do that on the contents of the glass vial inside the satchel. He settled for ignoring where Brokk's gaze had fallen, and ensuring that he did not react in the slightest to it. "A challenge, of course. A very difficult one. And when I thought of who in all the Realms might have the power and skill to succeed in this challenge, I came up with one name."

"You haven't forgotten how to flatter with that silver tongue of yours, have you?" Brokk said, his smile softening a bit.

"Unfortunately, she wasn't available, so I came to you instead," his face a mask of friendly dry humor.

Brokk stared at him a moment, then broke out into hearty laughter, and suddenly before him was the Brokk Loki had first befriended, centuries and centuries ago, in another lifetime. "They say you've changed, Loki, but you haven't. Perhaps it's everyone else who's changed. Come, sit. Tell me about your challenge. True challenges are so few and far between these days. And sometimes things that appear to be challenges turn out to be far simpler than you could ever have imagined in your wildest dreams. Come, come," he said, beckoning Loki back inside the circle, to the bench, where Brokk sat on the right.

Loki eyed the candles as he stepped over them again and took a seat on the soft red and black cushions. Once upon a time, he'd spent large chunks of time here, perusing Brokk's odd collection of books and enchanted objects, when he'd felt the need to escape for a while from his life in Asgard. _Thor's_ friends were lauded, accepted now even among Odin's advisors. _Loki's_ friends – former friends – some of them, anyway, were reviled, Brokk so much so that he was forbidden to step foot on Asgard, and Loki was forbidden to see him. Of course, Thor had never felt it necessary to arm himself among his friends, as Loki had done here.

"My father and I got into another spat," Loki began, and Brokk nodded in sympathetic understanding. Many conversations here had begun the same way, and this was what _Loki_ hoped to cultivate: no urgency, no desperation, just another family argument. "You know he's long been irritated with the ways I use magic, and after what happened on Midgard…" Brokk, he figured, must know about that, since he'd mentioned his time there among the mortals.

"Failure rarely occurs in so epic a form as that."

Loki grit his teeth, calmed the surging anger before responding. "A miscalculation. And external factors that were not up to me. It doesn't matter now. Father was angry with me, and placed an enchantment directly on my body. It punishes me every time I use magic for something he wouldn't approve of. He seeks to control me as though I were a youth. It's intolerable, Brokk, but it's impossible for me to remove it. His magic is strong. If anyone can remove it's you, but it wouldn't be easy."

"Always playing games. There's no need for that here. This is indeed an interesting challenge. And not without risk. Especially to _me_. Your father despises me already. If I interfere in this-"

"He will never know. We aren't exactly on speaking terms anymore, and who else is going to tell him?"

Brokk sat back and looked at him for a moment. "All right, I'll consider it. Is there a mark?"

"There is."

"Show it to me."

Loki nodded and leaned down to pull off the boot. It would be a relief. His foot had been swollen so badly this morning from yesterday's abuse that putting it on had been a ten-minute exercise in near-torture. One hand around his heel and one around his ankle, he gave an experimental tug and grimaced. Then in his peripheral vision he saw blue flame leap upward. He released the boot and jerked up toward Brokk, his right hand going for the dagger, when he saw one of those Svartalf fire needles leaving Brokk's hand, aimed for his throat. Loki drew the dagger with his right hand and moved to intercept the dart with his left, but in an unpleasantly familiar moment it burst into flame right in front of him before he could bat it away.

Loki instinctively closed his eyes and arched back as flames licked up toward his face. He struck blindly with the dagger where Brokk should have been, but never felt it meet resistance. He felt little bursts of magic all around him, too rapid to identify or even distinguish one from the next.

He felt a hand clamp down on his shoulder and struggled to open his eyes but failed, struggled to move away but failed, struggled to lash out with magic of his own but failed. He felt like he was underwater and drowning.

"Your father isn't the only one who's angry, Loki."

His eyes popped open then, or rather, it was as though they'd never been closed. They were simply open now, though it was too dark to see anything but shapes. His nostrils flared as he sucked in a quick breath of air gone stale. Air that was not of Svartalfheim, nor was it of Asgard, nor of Midgard, nor of any other realm. Air that was uncomfortably recognizable. His eyes began to adjust to the lower light, and he steeled himself to show no fear. He knew exactly where he was, though he'd never known its name, if it had one. Names seemed of little import in this place, where it seemed only one individual had an actual name of his own. Thanos.

/

* * *

/

It was Sunday at the Pole, a day of rest for most of its inhabitants. Jane had found people chatting in the galley over warm cookies that Zeke had made, discussing a novel Jane hadn't read in the greenhouse, a debate about existentialism that made Jane's head hurt in the lounge, a basketball game going on in the gym, and planning for a fire drill in the conference room. She finally found Selby in the Music Room, playing something hauntingly beautiful and vaguely familiar at the electronic piano.

He hadn't heard her come in and the keyboard was turned so that his back was mostly to her, so she let the door quietly ease closed behind her and waited.

"That was beautiful," she said when he finished, his fingers still lingering lightly over the keys.

Startled, he whipped around to face her.

"What was it? I kind of recognized it." She crossed the room to stand beside him.

He swallowed visibly. "Beethoven's _Moonlight Sonata_. First movement. That's the one people recognize. My favorite is the third, actually, but…"

"Oh, okay, yeah, I've heard of that. I'd love to hear the third movement."

"Uh, well…no, actually, I can't stay. I have to go pick up my laundry," he said, already rising from the chair.

"Oh. Well, can we meet somewhere afterward and talk? I wanted to…you know, explain myself. And what's really been going on here. And apologize for all the-"

"Jane, I really have to go," he said, fidgeting with his fingers and circling around her to head for the door.

"Okay, but when can we meet?" she asked, following him in confusion. The air was so dry and cool it wasn't as though his clothes were going to sour from a few extra minutes left in the washing machine.

"I, uh, I don't really think that's such a good idea, after all." His hand was already turning the doorknob.

"Selby, wait. What's wrong?" They stood in the open doorway, her hand on his arm.

He looked down at her hand and shrugged away. "I _really_ don't think that's a good idea. Look, this has been working just fine the way it is. You keep to your business, and I'll keep to mine. I don't want to get tangled up in the stuff you're involved with. I don't want…just stay away from me, okay, Jane?"

Jane stared at him in open-mouthed shock, and rather than waiting for an answer he turned and hurried away. She felt like something was shriveling and dying inside her. _Finally_ she'd been about to work things out with Selby and rid herself of the guilt she'd been carrying once she'd realized everything bad she'd thought about him had been no more than a manipulation crafted by Loki. _Finally_ she'd been about to tell someone the truth. The _whole_ truth. She'd even wanted to ask his advice on how long she should wait for Loki to come back, and how she should address his disappearance, and when she should contact SHIELD. She'd wanted a confidante. She _needed_ one. Clearly he already knew something – maybe Loki had told him something – and he didn't want to know any more.

She stepped back into the silent room, stared at the four walls, the empty chairs, the instruments on their stands and in their boxes. She went over to the keyboard, sat down, and started tapping out the melody to _Heart and Soul_. It was lifeless and empty next to Selby's _Moonlight Sonata_ and she stopped after ten notes.

She felt suddenly, overwhelmingly, crushingly alone. Anger flashed through her. It was Loki's fault. He'd deliberately separated her from everyone here, especially the person she had the most in common with. He'd made her world shrink from just this patch of ice to just him. She'd started to break free of him, then she'd found out who he really was and again he'd become the center of her very small world. And now he was gone.

She wasn't alone, of course, not really. Not anymore. She'd re-established some of the earlier tentative friendships and they along with newer ones had been growing. It wasn't like she wanted Loki here. It wasn't like she needed him. But no one here – no one _anywhere_, not even SHIELD – would understand. Not the isolation and inability to escape that was the South Pole in winter. Not the humiliation over having been made a fool of all that time. Not the terror of living two doors down from Loki and not being able to tell anyone. Not the gut-clenching feedback-loop of emotions set off after he nearly choked her to death. Not how confused and unsettled she was, when she felt like she should be single-minded, after every despicable thing he'd done. She detested him. She feared him. But she also worried about him now. For his life. For his fate in Asgard. For his relationship with Thor, and his mother and father. She was curious about him, and had only become more curious after he left yesterday. Who was he, who had he been, who had he become, and how? Why was he so full of anger? How many of all those things written about him were true?

It was supposed to be simple. It was supposed to be over. It was supposed to be _The End._ She would help Loki leave. Thor and his father would deal with him, and Jane would get on with her life and her work without having to worry about anyone potentially wanting to kill or maim her. Loki left, and he _probably_ wasn't coming back. More than likely he'd made it safe and sound, and she _would_ soon get on with her life, somehow, eventually. But somehow she'd expected to be happier about it.

/

* * *

/

Loki stared with unblinking eyes at the harsh rocky landscape that seemed to hang unsupported in the cold black emptiness of space, absent any normal structure of a realm, seemingly absent any atmosphere, although he'd never had any trouble breathing here. He turned his gaze on Brokk, who stepped gingerly over the rocky ground and peered up a familiar staircase that curved away from view, lit from underneath with glowing blue lights.

He felt all the weight of the curse that was his very existence come crashing down on him. _This_ was what he'd risked some new Midgardian version of travel through Yggdrasil for? _This_ was what he'd pushed himself and Jane so hard for? _This_ was what he'd given himself up to Thor and let himself be hauled back to Asgard for? To be dragged right back here? Full circle. The place of his demise. The place of his rebirth. Or was that the bridge? Or the Weapons Vault? Or Odin's bedside? Or the throne of Asgard? Or a pile of rubble in Stark's tower in New York?

His thoughts swam, growing muddied in space and time.

Brokk called out a greeting, bringing Loki back to the here and the now.

He didn't bother looking around, assessing his surroundings. There was no point. There was no escape. He couldn't flee from this place; he wasn't even really _in_ this place. He was sitting on a cushioned wooden bench in Brokk's dwelling on Svartalfheim. If he concentrated hard enough, he could almost feel the cushions beneath him. But perhaps he was merely imagining it.

If he was going to make it out of here, it wasn't going to be through physical strength; his body wasn't here. His mind was here, his consciousness, and while it was subject to manipulation he knew how to guard against that.

"You've made some new friends, have you, Brokk?" Loki asked, finally taking a step forward of his own. He blinked, and felt a familiar weight settle over his body, atop his head. Yes, his mind, thus far, at least, was his own. He now wore his armor and leather and horned helmet. Everything from the point of the horns to the tip of his fingers to the toe of his boots was an illusion – a projection of his own mind – but it was a comfortable illusion, and one in which he felt at ease and could project confidence, whether he actually felt it or not.

Brokk turned back toward him. "You offered me a challenge. _Thanos_ offered me a realm."

Loki allowed every bit of his scorn to show on his face. "Why does _that_ sound familiar? I hope you didn't choose Midgard. It isn't worth the trouble. Although there's a mortal there called Bruce Banner you should seek out if you _did_ choose Midgard."

"I've no desire to possess such a childish realm, the most backward and ignorant of all the Nine. What does it have to offer me? What did it have to offer _you_?"

Loki had his reasons – and simple opportunity – but he wasn't about to discuss it with Brokk. Besides, right now he was better off keeping his silence and listening. Learning.

"It doesn't matter anyway," Brokk continued. "I turned him down. I don't want a realm. What would I do with one? What dreadful work that must be. I want _power_. My kind of power. _Raw_ power." He began looking around again.

Loki's eyes shifted to the side as one of those enormous creatures slithered past, through nearby rocks. "And the nameless one thought _my_ ambition little," Loki muttered, just loud enough for Brokk to hear. Loki had wanted both. And then he thought perhaps that was actually where he'd gone wrong. Once he had the tesseract, he could have done anything, gone anywhere, left the Nine Realms far behind for good. But instead of fleeing with the tesseract to learn to master it, to write a new destiny for himself, he'd done exactly as he'd been instructed, ensuring a mammoth portal opened up and letting in a useless, mindless, and unnecessarily destructive army he didn't fully control.

Why? He had _left._ He'd let go of Gungnir by his own choice, because he never wanted to see Asgard or those two faces ever again. And yet he'd chosen to stake his claim on one of the Nine. _The_ one of the Nine on which Thor had already staked a claim. He hadn't hidden himself from Heimdall then; he hadn't thought they yet had any means to reach him, and he wanted to rub his subjugation of Midgard in their face. But he'd also known that someday, someday – for the Aesir and the false Aesir both were very long-lived – Thor would come. Perhaps even Odin, his false father to face him just as he'd faced his true father in the Ice War. Rulers of realms testing each other on a battlefield. Equals. It was a grand image. It had been replaced by one of Thor hauling him up from a shallow pit of debris and closing manacles over his wrists.

"You have returned."

Loki's heart quickened from the pace it had settled down to, but he betrayed no other sign of surprise. He lowered his head slightly and angled it slowly, deliberately to the right, his eyes peering out coldly from underneath the lines of the helmet. Brokk was giving this subservient creature some kind of bow, while the creature himself stared at Loki. If his face wore an expression of surprise, Loki could not detect it. Detecting anything at all on that half-concealed and almost corpse-like face was difficult.

"I brought you a gift."

"He does not require gifts. You know what he requires," the one who called himself only "The Other" answered.

"Isn't this part of it, though? You wish him to suffer, do you not? You can keep him here as long as you want. Forever, if it pleases you. Although I suppose my library will eventually become unusable as his body rots on my sofa. You could torment him for a time, then use him as a bargaining chip."

Loki's lips pressed into a thin line but he otherwise maintained his proud, unaffected stance. _Apparently I somewhat underestimated how upset he was after our last falling out._ Loki pictured himself slicing Brokk open and emptying his body of its contents. Slowly.

"Do you think we have nothing better to do with our time than torture _him_? He is nothing. An embarrassment. A failure. A boy who still believes himself to be a king. We owe him unending pain, but he is bothered little by physical pain. His agony will come from other hands. Hands he fears even more than ours."

_I fear nothing!_ he thought, even though he knew it wasn't entirely true. He _did _fear what could happen to him here, if he became truly trapped – though it was hard for him to imagine that he wouldn't eventually be able to find _some_ means of gaining his release. He feared no other hands, though, and controlled his growing desire to unleash a verbal assault in hopes of learning who exactly they believed he feared. He had learned the hard way that antagonizing The Lesser would not improve his circumstances, even if it had at times been highly enjoyable, almost a game.

"Their children may fear them, lord of this land, but grown Aesir have no special fear of the Frost Giants, no more so than the Fire Giants, or a Light Elf and his arrow, or a Dark Elf and his scimitar."

_Frost Giants…_ Something hard and heavy formed in his stomach and sat there, growing. He felt the muscles of his face stretching and pulling taut. He had forgotten. Of course they knew. They'd asked, and he'd answered like a blubbering child. They knew everything. What they hadn't gotten from his lips, once he'd gotten hold of himself after his "rescue" from the abyss, they'd gotten from his mind as they sifted through his memories like grains of sand through fingers. But how did Brokk know? _What _did Brokk know? None of this was making any sense.

The Other approached Brokk with a suddenness that Loki recognized well. He hoped his supposed "friend" was about to suffer tremendously.

Instead the creature merely drew close, letting Brokk feel his breath. "He has given you a plan. Do you ignore it? He admires initiative. But he insists on obedience."

"Of course I will obey," Brokk said with another of his little bows.

_Obsequious little toad._

"And yet you doubt us. Perhaps you need proof?" Suddenly The Other whirled and drew up to Loki's side almost as though to a magnet, with no clear movement of legs, wrapping a clawed thick hand around Loki's left wrist. "Show us, King of Lies."

Loki glared at him obstinately and refused to be intimidated. He was taller. He was stronger. He _was_ a king. He was a god.

"What- What is-" Brokk stuttered out.

Loki turned his glare on Brokk, and saw that he was staring at Loki's arm. He looked down in time to see the silver mail armor disintegrating along with the green cloth over and under it – not the gold armor or clothing he'd had on a moment earlier – and his skin turning dark blue. He tried to twist his hand away from the grip of…the Frost Giant who held it, for it was no longer Thanos's lackey whose painful grip held him in place. Cold sank into his bones as the landscape turned to solid ice, but quickly retreated from his arm as the ghastly blue flesh spread. "Release me!" he demanded, a slight quaver in his voice that he detested, when no amount of tugging at his arm helped. The Frost Giant stared down at him, so much larger, making him feel so small, and grinned. He remembered his knives, and pulled one from its hiding spot, thrusting it into the giant's chest in a flash. The giant didn't react at all, while Loki's eyes were stuck on his right hand, which had now turned blue, too. Something about his face felt different; he knew the helmet was gone, but this was something else. His eyes went wide in sudden terror as his hand flew to his forehead and found not the smooth face he'd grown up with but the ridged thickened brow of a Frost Giant. His left wrist was released so suddenly that he stumbled backward and fell, clawing at his face, digging sharpened nails into the skin that did not belong there, that could not be there, that _was not him_-

His fingers hit hard metal. They flew up and found the horns. They dropped down and found smooth, undamaged skin.

Rage consumed him. At how easily and quickly he'd been manipulated. At his humiliation. At being made a fool of. At being exposed for what he was in front of Brokk. He lunged up from the rocky ground at The Putrid One and charged him, only to pass right through him and nearly stumble to the ground again. He clung hard to the thread of rationality that now reminded him that his body existed here only as much as the creature before him allowed it to. It was not currently within his power to cause the bodily harm he desired. _Currently_, he repeated to himself.

"This is his true form. He is despised for it by those who claim to love him," the creature said with a sneer of disgust. "Do you understand now?"

Brokk nodded slowly, staring hard at Loki, while Loki stared daggers back at the both of them and began to consider how he was going to talk his way out of this. Apparently they thought too little of him to bother with torturing him – the words were far enough past now that they held no sting. He would be nothing for them, less than nothing for them, if it meant he would be released from this place. There was pride and then there was pure stupidity. And if they wished to somehow release him to some band of Frost Giants, well, none had wandered into this land of rock and night, and there weren't likely to be any on Svartalfheim, either. Frost Giants never left Jotunheim, not without help, not since losing the Ice Casket. The lackey had spoken of a plan. Loki didn't think much of his plans, after how the last one had turned out. He could not be placed in the Frost Giants' hands here, except through manipulation of his mind, and they weren't interested in that, beyond the little demonstration. Outside of this land, absent the scepter, they had no power over him or anyone else. That meant he had only Brokk to fear. And he did not fear Brokk.

As Loki's confidence grew, he watched Brokk lean in close to The Other – Loki had always detested being close to him, for his breath reeked of death – and speak something in lowered tones that Loki could not hear even when he tried. He had no ears here; he supposed he heard what he was permitted to hear. The Other then placed a hand against Brokk's forehead and the Dark Elf disappeared.

Loki's confidence faltered. Brokk was back in his body, in his home, in Svartalfheim. Sitting next to his own body. His empty body. His vulnerable body.

The Other turned toward him, and Loki caught a flash of red mouth and teeth. He'd never known for certain if that was actually blood in the creature's mouth or not. He hadn't cared to look closely enough to attempt to find out.

"_I've told you enough. I won't be answering any further questions until you answer some of mine. What is this place? Who are you? You haven't even given me a name."_

"_We have no need of names here. We speak for our master."_

"_So you are not the master?"_

_The creature shrank back as if offended. His movements were strange and unsettling in no way Loki could put a finger on. "I am a trusted servant to the master. Some have called me 'The Other,' when they have felt the need for a name."_

_Loki scoffed at that. He was fast losing his patience with this disgusting creature who'd plucked him from an eternity in dark and airless abyss. "If you aren't worthy even of a name, then I'll call you Nothing, for that is what you must be."_

_His host, his savior, was unfazed. "As you wish, Loki Odinson," he said, emphasizing the family name._

_Loki clenched his fists and energy crackled there._

_As host and savior became captor, Loki called him many other names, from the insulting to the purely vulgar, and those hadn't bothered The Other either. When he finally learned the name Thanos he insulted him as well…once and never again. Loki learned to play their game, to stand his ground right up to a line he learned to recognize, and then to give in, or at least to appear to, and the captive became the ally. The scepter was crafted to his specifications, and was placed in his hands._

"_You will succeed," Thanos said, when Loki climbed the smooth twisting stairs to come before him for the second and last time. "Or you will long for death."_

_Loki started to respond, but the tall creature with the dark violet face, gleaming white teeth, and eerily glowing blue eyes was already turning back around. Loki had never seen a throne room in which the king faced away from his supplicants. Thanos, of course, clearly did not see himself as a mere king. The lackey was bowing. Loki would never bow to anyone again, or kneel, or swear fealty of any sort that put him beneath anyone else._

_He followed The Other back down the stairs. He gathered tendril after tendril of energy emitted by the tesseract, extending even here, now that he knew what to look for, now that he'd seen it and felt it up close on the shadow visit to Midgard The Other had helped him make. When he'd gathered and knotted enough of them together he forced them into coherence and, trembling from the effort, he pummeled the door until it gave way – just a crack, but a crack was all he needed._

"You failed. You failed _him_."

"_I_ failed? Your army failed. You overestimated the Chitauri."

"We had endless numbers of Chitauri eager for the conquest. All lost. _You_ underestimated the might of that little world."

"How was I to know how far they'd advanced?" _And how far they've advanced indeed,_ Loki thought, an image of Jane suddenly coming to mind, in the moment she'd first shown him what came to be known as Pathfinder, out on top of the DSL. It was ugly and vulgar to think of her while here; her image did not belong here. He forced it aside.

"You were unfocused. You did not lead as you should have."

"How easy it is to say such things while hovering here among your rocks. What do you want from me now, anyway? I held up my end of the bargain. I made it to Midgard. I scattered her heroes. I opened the portal and let _your_ force through. I was prepared to give you the tesseract, had the Chitauri succeeded."

"And yet we do not have it, do we? You failed, Jotun. We should have known you would fail. You have failed at everything you've ever attempted. You are unworthy of his time, but he made you a promise. Others will ensure your suffering. You failed. You will long for death."

Before Loki could bite out a response, The Other was again right in front of him and he was willing himself not to flinch as he watched the gray six-fingered hand come to his cheek in a mockery of a caress. The pressure was gentle but the contact lit up his nerves, sending pain signals screaming up into his brain and down into his spine. He reached for a knife and his mind produced one, but of course it and his hand passed harmlessly through Nothing. The pain came in waves crashing endlessly one on top of the next until he lost track of time and began to drown in it. He clamped his jaw down even tighter, not even feeling it over the continuously firing nerves, refusing to scream, refusing to give Nothing the satisfaction. _It will end. It will end. It will end it will end it will end…_

Loki felt his head swaying forward, his body threatening to follow, and jerked himself back upright. His eyes sprang open at the same time as his arms shot forward to strike. But there was nothing there. He looked around him and for a moment couldn't recognize where he was. Then he knew. Brokk's dwelling. His library. His wooden bench, his red and black cushions. His circle of blue and silver flames.

He stared at the candles and narrowed his eyes. Brokk was gone. And there had not been yellow candles with silver flame there before, only white ones with blue flame. He drew in a slow breath, still a little shaky although the pain had faded, and let it out again, steadier now. Blue flame he hadn't seen before. He knew how Brokk used the silver flame.

He stood and approached the line marked by the candles. He reached out a hand, and as soon as his fingers met the perimeter, he met resistance. He pushed against the invisible wall and felt the familiar give, for it was soft, almost spongy, but soft did not mean breakable. Not even Thor's strength would be able to force these magical walls – this magical cage – to give way. Loki knew; he and Brokk had tested it on Thor once, and he'd driven himself to exhaustion and a minor injury trying to escape. Under different circumstances, Loki might have laughed at the irony that he himself was now caged by this magic. He was in no mood for laughter. He reached out with magic to try to force the wall to part, then to try to knock over a candle, then to try to blow out a flame. It didn't work, and he'd known it wouldn't, but couldn't resist trying. The enchantment was on the outside, beyond his reach.

He walked the interior perimeter, circling the bench, then standing on it and reaching above, then levitating a bit higher until the wall curved inward and met in a domed roof at the ceiling, testing the cage for weakness. He found none, of course. He'd come to Brokk for a reason. Still, Brokk was arrogant, even more so now that Thanos and his lackey were dangling "raw power" of some sort before him; Loki could almost imagine it was the tesseract, but there was no way Odin would ever let that off of Asgard again. Arrogance… Loki let his eyes drift closed for a moment. _Arrogance leads to miscalculations._

He drew his brown cloak around him and fell still. He readied himself for escape.

* * *

/

_My apologies for slow responses to reviews on the last chapter and likely this one – I'm out of town right now and have limited internet access. I deeply appreciate every single review, and I _will_ respond, it just might take me a little longer than usual this next week or so._

_Did you notice, at about 52 seconds, there's a brief glimpse of Loki's back in the early Thor 2 trailer? I got so ridiculously excited when I spotted this after many viewing (which I'll admit, focused mostly on Loki's more obvious appearance at the end, and Thor's distressing "when (not if) you betray me…"_

_Previews from the next chapter: Unfortunately, all I can really say without being completely spoiler-y is that Loki and Brokk have a rather unfriendly confrontation. If you happen to want more of a spoiler, let me know, and I'll send you one via PM (though again I may be a bit slow to respond, sorry!).  
_

_And excerpt:_

Loki merely watched him, and the two large Dark Elf warriors who'd followed him into the library.

"But first things first." He turned to the elves at his side, in full black and tan battle garb, black leather helmets, black leather boots with silver spikes protruding from the toes, black leather gloves with similar spikes at the knuckles. "We're going to take you to Asgard, and when things get bad enough, they'll deliver you to Jotunheim themselves."


	48. (47) Daggers

**Beneath**

**Chapter Forty-Seven – Daggers**

Loki didn't have long to wait, less than half an hour. More than enough time. He had even produced his mirror and healed the minor burns on his neck and face. He heard the footsteps, the stairs creaking underneath the weight. Brokk was bringing more friends. Brokk himself was not as tall as Loki, nor nearly as strong physically. Raised in Asgard's warrior society alongside Thor, Loki had trained harder than perhaps anyone else in the long history of Asgard. He was a highly proficient warrior even without magic. Although Brokk enjoyed collecting weaponry, he had never been a warrior; his biggest advantage had lain in the element of surprise, and that was long gone now. So, the creaking stairs told him, he had called on muscle to join him this time.

"You're back. Good. Comfortable? Our mutual friend didn't make things too unpleasant for you after I left, I hope. I merely needed him to hold you for a while longer so I could prepare. You understand. I'm sorry it came to this." Brokk stopped right in front of the bench where Loki sat. His serious, sad smile transformed into one of amusement. He chuckled. "That's not true. I've had a lot of fun lately, but this is the most fun I've had in centuries. I still can't believe you walked right into my house. Right into my _house_, Loki. Do you know how hard I was searching for you? Not that that was my task, but I couldn't help myself. You were right; I _do_ like a challenge, and finding you when you don't want to be found is surely one of life's greatest challenges. And you walked right into my house, into my library, even into my _circle._ I was discussing your destruction and your nose was practically touching mine. You deserve everything you're going to get. But I'm going to miss you, Loki. No one has ever entertained me the way you can. Perhaps after a few centuries of torment I'll try to free you, if you're still alive, just so we can begin anew."

Loki merely watched him, and the two large Dark Elf warriors who'd followed him into the library.

"But first things first." He turned to the elves at his side, in full black and tan battle garb, black leather helmets, black leather boots with silver spikes protruding from the toes, black leather gloves with similar spikes at the knuckles. "We're going to take you to Asgard, and when things get bad enough, they'll deliver you to Jotunheim themselves."

"_Bad enough"? Do you really think they can get much worse? They can hate me any more? You know what I've done. You saw what I am._ But Loki didn't dare risk speech. He wasn't certain he would be able to maintain it without arousing suspicion.

"You used to be much more of a conversationalist. At least you aren't begging. I abhor begging. Terek, you two be ready as soon as I create a door here. He's clever. Don't trust him, don't even trust your eyes."

_Wise advice,_ Loki thought with a private smirk. Too bad none of them were following it, not even Brokk himself.

The warriors nodded and Brokk continued. "Subdue him by whatever means you feel necessary, short of killing him. I'll open a small portal and keep us hidden, and we'll bind him to a tree on the edge of a forest, where he'll be found ea-"

"Not the Felingard Forest. Not if you want him to live," Terek said.

"Oh? No, not there," Brokk said, then snuffed out a blue flame with his fingertips, causing all the other blue ones to die instantaneously. He looked up at Loki sitting so still on the bench, and wariness crept into his face.

Loki forced a feral smile to his lips.

"No, he'll be safe where we're taking him. Well, at least until they send him to Jotunheim," he added with another chuckle.

Loki dismissed this threat easily. No matter how much Asgard hated him, no matter how many there might actually want him delivered to Jotun "justice," Thor had sworn an oath. He was in no danger of being sent to Jotunheim from Asgard. That didn't mean he was willing to be delivered to Asgard as a prisoner and be thrown right back into another cage.

Brokk carefully removed one yellow candle from the circle, keeping its silver flame burning. He lifted the invisible wall from the floor, as though gathering up curtains, watching Loki carefully, but also continually glancing around elsewhere inside the circle.

Loki silently gave him a little more credit. Brokk was not Thor.

When Brokk had lifted the "curtain" high and wide enough for his Svartalf accomplices to pass through, he brushed out the edges with his fingertips to secure it in place, and shaped it into a rough rectangle – a door, just as he'd said.

As soon as Brokk stepped aside, and before one of the warriors could step in to take his place, Loki sprang forward. Not the Loki they saw sitting calmly on the bench, but the Loki they didn't see, who'd been waiting by his side, putting more effort into maintaining a duplicate than he had since he'd first learned the skill in his young adulthood. The instant he stopped concentrating the Loki on the bench flickered and became somewhat transparent, but by then it didn't matter. The invisible Loki held an Einherjar's sword in his right hand and Brokk's own jeweled dagger in his left. He plunged the sword through the middle of the warrior who would have come first through the door into the circle, then put all of his strength into it and pivoted around, withdrawing the sword and using the momentum to shove the stunned warrior away to the side clutching his stomach.

Brokk knew instantly what had happened; Loki could feel him pulling at his magic, trying to make him visible. But Loki had learned how to make himself invisible almost as long ago as he'd learned how to make a believable duplicate, and Brokk's efforts were in vain. The other warrior, Terek, put his few seconds of advance warning to use and lowered himself into a defensive stance, long curved sword drawn diagonally across his body. Loki drew him to the side with a glancing strike at his arm, then plunged the dagger into his heart, leaving it there and reaching across his body to draw the second dagger from its place on the opposite thigh. Terek gasped and pitched forward, swinging his sword around and down, slicing through Loki's tunic, and drawing a thin stinging line of blood down his chest before Loki could step back. Terek hit the ground with a thud and did not move, unlike the other warrior, who was trying to pull himself up from the floor.

Loki's head jerked up from them as he felt a harsh tug at his magic. He found Brokk, standing only a few steps away, between him and the door, staring right at him, having succeeded in doing what he shouldn't have been able to.

"Back in the cage, Loki," Brokk growled. "You aren't leaving this realm except as my prisoner."

"Then I suppose I'll stay. Perhaps I'll take up residence right here, once I've evicted the current occupant." He wrenched the magic for his invisibility back and stepped quietly to the side. Brokk was unarmed. _Foolish._ Loki hurled the dagger hard at the center of Brokk's chest.

It came to a sudden halt just before it would have pierced his flesh, and clattered to the ground. Brokk extended his hand and the dagger leapt up to it. "Didn't I mention it, Loki? These daggers, and in fact all of my weapons, are enchanted not to harm me. It's the first thing I do when I acquire them. How has this never come up before?"

Loki crept back before Brokk. He'd wanted to use the dagger. He'd wanted to _enjoy_ the dagger. But the sword would do, too. When he was close enough he lunged and thrust forward and up, toward Brokk's chest, aiming to cut deeply but not impale, still desiring his revenge for the betrayal.

Brokk gave a gratifying strangled cry of pain and the next thing he knew Loki was stumbling backward, off-balance, as though struck hard in the shoulder. He blinked heavily and looked down. The dagger's silver guard with its sapphire jewel rested against his right shoulder, and for a fraction of a second he couldn't process what he was looking at. A deep red stain was slowly advancing down his light gray tunic, below the line of the rough brown cloak. Moving slowly as though mired in mud he strained his neck around to the right and saw several inches of blade protruding from his back, through the cloak.

"I…suppose I also forgot to mention…the daggers are also enchanted…to find whoever sought to harm me with them. They don't…need to see you."

He dragged his gaze back around to Brokk, hunched over and cradling his chest, trying to heal it. Loki was missing his chance. He folded the dagger into his invisibility – there was no time to remove it – and silently shifted to the left. He tried to lift his sword, and his shoulder and entire arm burned in stubborn protest, the first pain he'd actually felt there. He took it in his left hand instead. He wasn't nearly as proficient that way, but he was still proficient enough to slice Brokk into shreds.

Brokk disappeared.

Loki snarled.

He could stay and fight this out, but he had just lost the advantage. With him no more able to see Brokk than Brokk was able to see him, it could become a long and difficult fight. Loki's control of magic was impaired and his right arm was nearly useless until he could heal it or it eventually healed itself. The Svartalf warrior behind him was pulling himself to his knees. Loki moved to finish him, but stopped short. Brokk would be expecting that. He took careful stock of the scene, at a slight swirl of dust near the struggling elf. Brokk had never been as good with invisibility as Loki was.

He could stay, but he'd already lost. He hadn't come here to kill Brokk; he'd come here to get him to remove Odin's curses.

Loki knew when to retreat.

/

* * *

/

Activity in Asgard's palace had largely returned to the way it had been prior to the explosion four days ago, except for the throne room itself. It had been declared safe, but repairs were progressing slowly due to the continued mobilization of most of the realm's warriors. Odin still had no throne to sit upon, although its reconstruction had been made a priority.

Meetings were held in other locations, secured by Einherjar and carefully swept by Maeva or someone she designated. Many such meetings took place in the Feasting Hall, sometimes combined with revelry over a meal and sometimes not, and this enormous room was now more heavily guarded and secured against magical incursion as well.

"But why haven't they attacked again? Are they waiting for _us_ to make a move?" Supplies Advisor Geirmund asked. Minimally trained in battle, he had long served the court as a clerk and functionary, and was one of the few non-warriors at the latest meeting in the Feasting Hall.

There was plenty of speculation, but no answers. It was not the first time the question had been asked. "If Thor's theory is correct," Sif began, "then perhaps they _are_ waiting for us to attack, so they can then find a way to portray us as the aggressors, and ensure the support of their people."

"Especially on Vanaheim," Fandral said, on his first evening out of the Healing Room.

Hogun, too, was there for the first time since the explosion, and nodded. He had made his way to the table slowly, a cane in each hand and his friends at his side; both of his legs had been crushed, the bones shattered, by the falling pillar in the throne room. The healers were hopeful he would make a full recovery, but it would take time and continued treatment to make all of the damaged bones and connective tissues properly reform.

"And that is precisely why we have not attacked," Tyr said with a nod. "But whether Thor is correct or not, this lull will not last forever; if we don't break it, they will. If we don't act the way they expect us to, they may simply change their strategy. And we'll be right back where we started. We cannot hold off seven realms indefinitely simply by reacting defensively."

"If they intend to fight with unconventional uses of magic, then we must be prepared to do the same," Maeva said.

"Fight with magic?" Fandral asked. This discussion too was not new, but it was the first Fandral and Hogun had heard of it.

"Our warriors are not trained for such things," Tyr said.

"The Einherjar will resent it. They train hard to earn their title, and their accomplishments come through strength and skill and cunning, not outright trickery," Hergils said.

Thor listened to the familiar debate continue; it set him on edge as it had earlier. He agreed with Hergils. His mother, also at the table but mostly remaining silent, had often called war "ugly." He'd had a taste of it now, albeit a brief one as his father often reminded him, and yes, he could begin to see that it was ugly. But there _was_ a beauty in it as well, perhaps a beauty that only a warrior could see. And that beauty came from the honor of fighting well, and for a worthy cause. Thor could also see the benefit in the use of magic. Certainly Loki's magic had come in useful on occasion when they found themselves in dire circumstances. But there were unwritten rules Asgard had always followed, as had the other realms, for the most part. There were lines that were not crossed. If those lines became blurred, and were crossed again and again, what would Asgard become? What Asgard would be saved? Would Asgard become the very thing the other realms claimed that it was now? Asgard had the tesseract. If they were willing to stoop to any level, they could probably find a way to use the tesseract to destroy the other realms. And that, of course, was unconscionable. Or was it, if there were no other way? What if the options were turning over Loki, the Ice Casket, and the tesseract, not turning them over and being utterly destroyed, or opening up the Weapons Vault to turn its most deadly treasures against the other realms?

"More mead," Thor said, lifting his hand from the table and waving the serving girl over. She hurried around the table, having just refilled Sif's tankard.

"We need Loki," Volstagg announced, interrupting Geirmund.

Thor drew in a sharp breath, then jumped back from the table as the serving girl – Vedis, he thought her name was – spilled mead from her pitcher straight into his lap. "What are you doing?!" Thor bellowed. The girl looked mortified, and started to reach down with a towel, then wisely thought better of it and handed Thor the towel.

"I apologize, my prince, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm terribly sorry," she kept muttering as she managed to pour some mead into his tankard this time.

Thor glared at her for a moment, then tried to calm himself. He was _supposed_ to be more in control of his temper than this. And spilled mead was the least of his concerns.

The girl, on the verge of tears, disappeared into the kitchen and the distraction was forgotten.

"No one knows how to use magic in battle like Loki does," Fandral said, a touch of reluctance in his voice.

"We cannot trust Loki," Sif said.

"We do not _have_ Loki," Thor said. "_And_…we couldn't trust him if we did," Thor said, glancing up at his father and mother, sitting together, unlike at feasts, where they usually sat on opposite ends of the table. Odin had once said essentially the same thing, when it was Thor noting that Loki's skills would be helpful. Frigga's jaw moved, and her lips parted slightly, but she said nothing.

It was Odin who finally spoke, although he sidestepped the issue of Loki. "Right now we must focus on what we _do_ have. Bragi, do your men and women all have their new instructions now?"

"They do, All-Father. And we now have eleven more in place, including one in Muspelheim – a woman who is one-quarter Fire Giant – and three in Svartalfheim."

Odin nodded and was about to respond, when an Einherjar ran into the hall, his cape billowing behind him.

"All-Father! Heimdall advises that the Dark Elves are massing on horseback and on foot. They aren't attempting to hide themselves. Their numbers are much larger than in any of the individual attacks we faced earlier."

"Is there any sign of a portal being formed, there or here?" Odin asked.

"There is not."

"Then that is probably being hidden. Such a portal cannot be created quickly, not by any magic I know," Maeva said.

"But why would they hide it, if they aren't hiding their warriors this time? What would be the point?" Volstagg asked.

"Could Loki know how to do it?" Hogun asked quietly, looking first at Thor, then at Maeva.

Thor stared at Hogun in surprise, then anger, then disbelief, then anger again, because Hogun asking the question made him wonder the same. _Loki is on Midgard. Even if his betrayal continued, if he decided to turn his anger on Asgard instead when he could not find Jane, he could not. He can't leave Midgard._

"No," Maeva finally said, as the rest of the group sitting at the table got over their own surprise at the question. "I…I don't think so," she amended.

"He could not. Not solely with his own abilities," Odin said. "Loki is irrelevant to this discussion. Get word to the warriors that we believe an attack is imminent," he said to the Einherjar.

The Einherjar saluted and left, and others began rising from the table.

"The Warriors Three fight for Asgard a…again," Volstagg said, his tone going from boisterous to something quiet and awkward at the end, as Hogun, seated beside him, struggled to stand.

"Go," Hogun said. "I'll assist in the Healing Room, and join you as soon as I can."

The group drifted away, sharing plans as they went, but Thor lingered, lost in thought, until only he and his parents remained.

"Loki wouldn't do this, Thor," Frigga said.

Thor looked up, startled. "No, I…" He'd been about to say "I know," but the truth was, he _didn't_ know. How could he know for certain what Loki would and would not do now? He had sought out Jane. There was no reason for Loki to do such a thing, except out of pure, hateful spite. He'd gone after Midgard out of spite, and failed to take it. He'd gone after Jane, and failed to find her. Now…who knew what he might go after next?

His gaze lingered on Frigga. She didn't know he had been on Midgard looking for Loki, and thus he hadn't told her that he'd learned Loki had tried to find Jane. It was better if she didn't know; Loki had already broken her heart enough times.

He looked next at his father. _"Father is dead…your banishment…the threat of a new war…."_ _"I'm sorry…thank you for coming here."_ How had Loki done _that_? Had he come via bifrost? Or opened his passage with his own magic combined with Gungnir's power? He'd never asked. It didn't matter now, he supposed. Loki had neither bifrost nor Gungnir.

"What is it, son?" Frigga asked.

He shook off disturbing and pointless thoughts of Loki and remembered the girl he'd nearly brought to tears. "Nothing, Mother. I'm going to go apologize to that servant." He got up from the table and walked away, but Frigga caught him as he went past and pulled him into a quick embrace.

"Everyone is tense, Thor," she whispered into his ear.

He nodded, though he wasn't sure what she was referring to, the serving girl or something else. When he reached the kitchens, the head cook on duty apologized profusely for the spilled mead and said the girl had been let go, as it was the third time in recent months she'd spilled something while serving. Thor didn't remember any prior incidents; probably they hadn't been as dramatic, and certainly she hadn't spilled anything else directly on _him_. He requested she be given another chance, and the cook promised to offer it; a "request" from the heir to the throne was not ignored. And that was all Thor could do. He, too, needed to go join the warriors in preparing to defend against the attack; there was no time for chasing after crying servants. He wouldn't even take the time to change his clothing, instead taking the servant's mistake with him into battle.

/

* * *

/

Loki stopped in a darkened alleyway between two buildings. He didn't need the privacy – he was still invisible – but he needed the solitude and lack of distraction. His shoulder was aching terribly now, and he still had a dagger buried in it. If Brokk put his mind to it, he might be able to track him through the enchanted dagger, so he needed to get rid of it. And he knew it wouldn't be pleasant.

He took a series of deep breaths, his left hand resting just over the dagger's grip, then on an exhale wrapped his fingers around it and pulled. He hadn't felt it going in; the dagger made up for it coming out. The pain left him trembling and gasping. When his hands finally stopped shaking, he let the dagger clatter to the pale red brick-covered alleyway and laughed. _"I forgot to mention one _more_ thing, Loki, I've enchanted my daggers to inflict pain ten times worse than any normal dagger."_ It wouldn't surprise him. Then again, maybe it was so bad simply because he'd been stabbed in the back in the same spot the day before.

Loki brought his breathing back under control, then turned to the matter of his clothing. If he stayed invisible it wouldn't matter, but night would fall again soon, and Loki wouldn't make it out of the city to another town before then. He would need another room. A place to rest and heal himself and think in peace and quiet. A place he had no money for again. Because he'd given it all to that stupid girl, because he'd taken pity on her for some unfathomable reason. Loki shook his head. _Because she reminded me of poor, poor _Jane. _Wretched woman._

It wouldn't have been enough for lodging, anyway. He'd have to get more. And he'd have to do it carefully. He'd spent plenty of time gaming here, in Svartalfheim's capital, in times past. He would have to pursue his second choice, a Dark Elf who lived in a coastal village far to the northeast, and he would have to acquire another horse to do so, he realized with a groan. A flier would be preferable for that longer journey, but only a select few senior officials had them; among the realms where the inhabitants lived thousands upon thousands of years, there was rarely a need to hurry, and a loathing to dirty their home as Midgard had with all its mechanical forms of transport.

First things first. He was bleeding heavily now that he'd removed the dagger. He took off the cloak and set it aside, then the tunic and tore it into strips, wrapping them over his shoulder and under his arm. It was tedious and painful work, because he could barely use his right arm at all, and when he tried it was like being stabbed all over again. He looked at the blood-soaked material that used to be his tunic. _If this keeps up, I'll wish I'd brought those Midgardian garments._ He drew out his suitcase and opened it; he was down to two tunics plus the one he wore as part of his nightclothes, and the one he'd put on yesterday afternoon still had blood stains. He pulled out the black tunic and slowly, painfully pulled it on. He hoped the blood wouldn't show too badly on this one. He sent the suitcase away, then turned to the cloak. The blood stains there were fresher, and with some effort he managed to remove them with magic, and without punishment for any of it. He didn't bother with the holes; the cloak was so roughly hewn that they were barely noticeable.

Removing the blood from the cloak was more difficult than he'd expected. It could be simply due to the stress of the circumstances, and a certain weakness from loss of blood, but Loki was beginning to recognize this as wishful thinking. He would have to be even more careful. An end to these curses, and the return of his full ability to use magic, was now at least several days away, even assuming Mador could manage it, and entailed unknown risk.

Had Thanos somehow reached out to all of Svartalfheim's strongest magic-wielders? That was a sobering thought. He hoped it was only Brokk. What game was Brokk playing? There was precious little time, but Loki had erred in not bothering to take the time to think things through before – and he _always_ thought things through, to a fault, Thor had said countless times – so he did it now. Brokk had wanted to leave him in Thanos's tender mercies, or else trade him to Asgard – for what? The tesseract? Some other item of "raw power"? The tesseract certainly seemed most likely, but now that Brokk knew what he really was, surely he understood that Odin would never hand over the tesseract for such an abomination. So he then planned to simply tie him to a tree on Asgard? With the expectation that Asgard would deliver him onward to Jotunheim? Why?

"_You will long for something so sweet as pain." "You will long for death."_ If _this_ was what Thanos wanted, if it was the fulfillment of his threat…

He tried to picture it, and found it extraordinarily difficult. His mind rebelled against it. He tried harder. Odin. Thor. Frigga. Escorting him to the little wooden building they'd erected to hold the tesseract. Would they take him to Jotunheim, exchange a few diplomatic phrases with whomever ruled in Laufey's place, perhaps get another truce in force, before handing him over in chains and walking away? Or just send him alone and be done with it, leave without looking back? There was a wall there, a wall he couldn't see past. A wall he didn't _want_ to see past. He would choose death before being sent to Jotunheim with no means of escape – though again it was difficult to imagine that he wouldn't be able to come up with _some_ means of escape, it was just a question of how long it would take – and Thanos and his lackey would know how much he detested the Frost Giants, but he didn't understand why he was to suffer at the Frost Giants' hands via Asgard, instead of directly from Svartalfheim. He reminded himself that it was irrelevant. That Odin might order such a thing, but Frigga would never support it, and Thor would never allow it because of his oath. _"I'll go in your place if I must,"_ Thor had said. Not that Odin would ever allow _that_ to happen.

Loki thought back to what else he'd noticed about Brokk. The new wood paneling on his dwelling. The expensive new rug on the floor. The new bookcase in his library, already half-filled with books. The promise of "raw power" from Thanos. It still made no sense. Brokk had curried favor with someone – Thanos had no money to give him, certainly not through the magical connection through which they communicated. His magic may be powerful, but if Asgard knew how to do one thing well it was protecting its magical treasures.

Then he remembered the supposedly secret gateway – guarded and blocked on Asgard, trap in place on Svartalfheim. Could Svartalfheim have threatened Asgard in an effort to obtain the tesseract? But Svartalfheim presented no real challenge to Asgard's warriors, and Svartalfheim knew that. Like all the other realms, they lacked the extensive training and universal warrior spirit of Asgard, even if they did outnumber the Aesir.

He couldn't make the pieces fit, and he couldn't wait here forever. The sun was no longer visible – still up, but hidden behind low Svartalf buildings and an overcast sky. He made himself visible, then set off, but this time paid much more attention to his surroundings, and not just the occasional sentry patrols he came across. It began to rain, but even before then the streets seemed quiet for the city, not as quiet as Asgard's, not empty, but quiet nonetheless. _Something_ was going on. Why hadn't he recognized it before? Svartalfheim quiet, Asgard quieter. His thoughts kept jumping back to Thor, as the person who'd most recently started a war between two realms, but he didn't see how Thor could figure in with Brokk, who _had_ to be involved. And he was now jumping to unreasonable conclusions. He'd seen no one fighting, no armies readying to fight. Perhaps it was the _threat_ of war hanging in the air in both realms.

He heard hooves striking the cobbled street in the distance, soon growing to a thunder, and three men on saddled horseback, warriors, rounded a corner and raced toward him. Loki's heart raced but he maintained his pace and direction. He averted his face to take in the storefront display to his right, a toy shop, though he paid no attention to its goods and instead watched the reflection in the glass. He breathed a sigh of relief when they passed, although it was in the direction of Brokk's home. He could have fought them if he'd had to, but any fighting was best avoided in his current state, and he had no idea how far Brokk's influence now reached, how much of Svartalfheim's might could be called down upon him.

Ahead of him now was a tavern he'd never visited before; Loki ducked in. The interior wasn't large, smaller than the one in Marheim. A small serving area was on the left wall, two doors behind it probably led to the kitchen and to the stairs to the lower levels, and six round tables seating six or eight patrons took up the rest of the space. There was less of a crowd than he'd expected, a few tables with small groups of two or three, and one table with eight seated and another four standing around.

"You're dripping water everywhere," a woman with dark hair and skin said, having rushed up to him after depositing plates at one of the tables. An old, white-haired elf sitting at the closest table turned to see who'd arrived.

"My apologies," Loki said quickly, hoping to not draw any further attention to himself.

"Welcome. Let me get this," she said, reaching up for the clasp at his neck.

He started to pull away and her hand came into accidental contact with his wounded shoulder; he stilled, clamping his jaw down hard to avoid reacting to the touch.

"I'll not have you ruining our floors. We just got them repaired. I'll hang this up in the drying closet and get you a towel, all right?"

Loki nodded and allowed the woman to remove his cloak. It would permit a better look at his face, but he could hardly keep the hood up the whole time, anyway, certainly not if he wanted to engage these patrons in a game of chance.

The woman was carrying the cloak away when the older man, still watching him, narrowed his eyes. "You're not of Svartalfheim," he said.

Loki cringed on the inside and knew instantly what had happened. His hair, loosened underneath the hood of the cape, had become damp in the rain, mussed and curling at the ends, obviously enough to reveal his ears.

Before he could respond, the woman was back, speaking for him. "Vanir are welcome here, Dathen. They're our _allies,_ or have you forgotten? Have a seat, I'll get your order in a few minutes."

Loki nodded, relieved for the assumption. It was exactly what he'd been about to say. Except for the part about Vanaheim and Svartalfheim being allies. They weren't enemies, but he couldn't recall any Dark Elf, or any Vanir for the matter, referring to the other realm as an ally. "Actually, I was hoping to discuss lodging first," he said, and was directed to Jetta, the woman at the counter currently washing out tankards.

He repeated his room haggling process and was surprised to find the prices lower than in Marheim, though still much higher than he recalled them being here.

"I don't know," one of the men at the crowded table said – and Loki noticed now that the women outnumbered men, which wasn't unheard of but which he wished he'd noticed right away, because it affected his ability to win the money he needed for his room and the renting of another horse. Women didn't usually participate in tavern games. "That's not the kind of thing I raised my sons and grandsons to be a part of," the man continued in the meantime.

Loki lingered at the periphery of the large group, waiting for an appropriate entrée into the conversation, and hopefully then into a game.

"I know. Believe me, I've thought the same thing. I have a young son fighting among our warriors. He's the one who told me about all this, as I mentioned. He's an honorable man. He was upset about it."

"It was the Vanir who were behind it?" a pale-skinned woman, paler than Loki, with ears large even for an elf asked. Standing behind the seated guests, she cast a nervous glance up at Loki.

The man with the honorable warrior for a son, whose back was almost directly to Loki, nodded. "That's what he told me. King Gullveig's man did it, even as Gullveig himself sat right there in the room, with King Odin and Prince Thor.

The people around the table responded in low murmurs among each other, while Loki's heart began to race again. He felt as though his name must be flashing in bright green letters above his head, but the few glances that came his way didn't linger. He could swear his own breathing was audible. _What happened?_ he wanted to ask – to demand. _What is going on?!_ He wanted to put a knife to a throat, to the throat of the man who'd just spoken so cryptically, and insist he make his story plain.

"This isn't the way war was meant to be fought," another man at the table said, his voice carrying over the others'.

_War? What happened to them?_ He wouldn't allow himself to think it through. He couldn't.

"Women shouldn't be killed. Not unless they pick up a sword," someone else said, to general nods and sounds of agreement.

"Women were killed?" Loki asked, the words out of his mouth before he could stop them. He was trying to keep his expression neutral but feared he was failing; he could feel the strain in his facial muscles.

The man telling the tale nodded and turned partly in his chair, not quite enough to see his face, but Loki realized now that the man's relatively short blond hair did not reveal elongated Svartalf ears. Aesir or Vanir, then, though if he was following this correctly – and he wasn't at all sure he was – the man was probably Vanir. "A young servant cleaning in the throne room. And the queen herself had been there just moments before. She could have easily been killed herself."

"You're Vanir, too; what do _you_ think of all this?" the older man, Dathen, who'd been sitting near the door but had since joined the group at the table asked. There was a challenge in his voice.

"I'm afraid I haven't heard the whole story," Loki said, and thought he deserved to be in one of those Midgardian movies for his acting skill. His voice was steady and calm, interested but not too interested; on the inside he seethed and was desperate to learn how his mother had come to nearly be killed, and why. And while he'd lacked a sense of direction for what he would do after getting Odin's curses removed, he had one now – end King Gullveig's life. Hardly what he'd imagined might be his next course of action, but it would certainly do.

It was one of the Svartalf women, rather than the storyteller himself, who at last filled him in. "It was the opening attack against Asgard. Right before the actual battles were launched, before our own warriors rode on Asgard. Gullveig and his man had gone to make a peace offer earlier, and while they were there in Asgard's throne room his man worked some kind of magic into the wall, and later it exploded. It caused many deaths and injuries."

"It killed even women," a wrinkled old woman said with a shudder.

"Then I think it is despicable," Loki said quietly, his thoughts on only one woman. "And their prince and king?" he asked.

"The prince was injured, the king was unharmed," the storyteller said, then twisted further in his seat to face Loki. There was a second's delay, and then the man's jaw dropped and eyes widened, clearly recognizing Loki.

Loki recognized him as well, though he could not put a name to the face. He set his jaw as he quickly assessed his options, but in the instant before he would have made himself invisible again and fled, he realized the man – Aesir, not Vanir, Loki knew this much now – was afraid of him, and was making no effort to reveal who he was, except by his obvious reaction to him, which a few of the others noticed.

"It's getting late. I'd best be on my way," Loki said.

"See, all this talk of politics is driving the customers away," Jetta said as she delivered refilled tankards.

Loki gave her a warm and entirely false smile and made his way to the door. A young boy of perhaps ten rushed in and pushed past him just as Loki reached the doorway.

"Mama! The sentries say there's an intruder from Asgard in the city!" he shouted. "He's already killed one warrior! They think he's here to commit sab…sab…"

"Hush, Mika," one of the women called from the table. No one else spoke. All eyes fell on Loki.

He gave a smile that was part grimace and made himself invisible yet again just as two of the men were pushing their chairs back to stand, their expressions angry. At least he wasn't punished; he could protect himself from Midgardians and from Svartalf…just not from Einherjar.

He shoved the boy roughly to the side, perhaps causing him to fall – Loki didn't take the time to check – and fled out into the street. He raced several blocks away, then stopped. It was undignified. It was beneath him. He rested against a brick wall, letting his head fall forward and his eyes close.

_What now?_ His head was spinning. Svartalfheim and Vanaheim – _Vanaheim!_ – had allied against Asgard and declared war, their opening salvo, Vanaheim's at least, an attempt to assassinate Asgard's royal family. It was about as likely as Sif melting her swords down into a lovely new set of sewing needles. Loki's eyes went wide in further disbelief. What if something had gone wrong in his travel through Yggdrasil? What if it had somehow sent him to _another_ Asgard, another Svartalfheim? Such things were theoretically possible, at least according to one of his teachers, and a handful of fanciful novels he'd read over the years. He'd never given it much thought.

_It can't be. But _this_ cannot be either. And Brokk and Thanos and Thor and…and Mother._ He didn't know how, or if, it all fit together, but he stopped trying when he thought again of his mother. _How many times did Gullveig kiss her hand? How could he do such a barbaric thing?_ His thoughts took another quick turn. _Perhaps he's only now realized who he really is. What he really wants. Perhaps he's not satisfied in Asgard's shadow._

_Was she hurt?_ he suddenly wondered. The Aesir in the tavern hadn't said; only that she'd nearly been killed. Suddenly he clutched at the satchel under his aching right arm. He could see for himself. Open the vial, drink the liquid, and go straight to her side. Without giving it any real thought he was opening up the bag and thrusting his left hand inside. Unexpectedly it hit cool metal and crinkly foil wrappers. He'd forgotten these newer objects in his haste. It gave him a new idea. It would be a poor use of what his mother had given him to simply check in on her; what would he do once he was there? If she _were_ injured, she would have been treated by the healers. He would be wasting his single-use-only escape route for worthless sentiment. He had another way now, one that would not require such drastic measures. Pathfinder. He could return directly to Midgard, getting off of Svartalfheim where he was now wanted – as he leaned against the brick-face building a few other warriors passed his position without seeing him – then let Pathfinder send him to Asgard again to surreptitiously look in on his mother. Even that was perhaps too much a risk, with everything that was going on now. It would be better for him to assume Frigga was fine, and instead go to Asgard solely to use one of the portals, or one of four hidden pathways he knew, to Alfheim. He knew of a few magic-wielders there who might stand a chance at removing these curses. And Frigga didn't need him. She had her real son – injured though he may be – there to help her.

He waited just long enough to quickly consider whether he should really give up on Svartalfheim. Yes, he decided, it was time. He was, as far as these people knew, still a Prince of Asgard, and Brokk or the surviving warrior had made it public that he'd just killed one of their warriors. It would be immensely risky for him to stay in the city, and just as risky to try to travel out of it tonight. He ignored the crinkly wrappers and pulled out the two electronic devices, then slid the straps over his wrists.

_Won't Jane be surprised to see me now?_ he thought with a small dark smile.

He toggled the switch that turned the transmitter back on.

Nothing happened.

He let out a quiet sigh, remembering that Pathfinder would send out a signal every five minutes. It could take up to five minutes, then, before he would be pulled back to Midgard. He steeled himself to arrive at the South Pole in nothing but his thin tunic and leather pants and boots, and wished he'd remembered to grab his cloak before leaving the tavern. Not that it would have helped much. And Big Red was conveniently nearby but inconveniently not invisible; he didn't want to risk even the few seconds it would take him to pull it out and make it invisible.

He watched as a patrol of four sentries and five citizens approached. If he didn't move they would bump into him, so he muffled the sound of his footsteps and hurried down the street, turning right at the next intersection. He took up a new spot and waited.

Nothing happened.

He began to count the seconds in his head as dread grew inside him. He stopped when he reached 300. Five minutes.

Nothing happened.

/

* * *

/

_Similarly to last time, no previews unless by request, I don't want to spoil anything for those of you who don't want any spoilers. Except…okay, Loki is _still _on the move, and Pop-Tarts get eaten._

_And excerpt (I had to find one completely incomprehensible, so massive bonus points to you if you can guess who Brokk is talking to - or maybe it's not that hard, I don't know, I never have much of a sense of how hard or easy it is to figure out these things):_

"What have you learned?" Brokk asked without any preamble.

"I don't know. I don't understand half of what they say. Please, can't you just make this stop? I've done enough. I can't take it anymore."

"Don't be a child. You don't have to understand what they say. You simply have to repeat it back to me, and _I'll_ do the understanding."


	49. (49) Investigation

**Beneath**

**Chapter Forty-Eight – Investigation**

Loki shook his head in frustration and yet another round of disbelief. Pathfinder _worked_. He knew it did. It had brought him to Asgard – fanciful novels aside, the one and only Asgard – and the probe before him. And it had brought that probe _back_. So it should bring _him_ back.

Unless Jane had turned it off.

He'd been gone more than a day now; the South Pole's artificially determined nighttime lined up closely with nightfall here in Svartalfheim's capital. If Jane had waited at all – and she probably had, for a while, he grudgingly admitted, even if not out of enduring concern for him then out of scientific curiosity – she was no longer waiting now.

Another idea came to mind. Pathfinder had sent him to _Asgard_, and it had successfully brought back a probe from _Asgard_. Loki had left Asgard and was no longer anywhere near it. If that was the case, then he would have to get back to Asgard somehow before he could return to Midgard via Pathfinder. But there was no reason to attempt such a route; Pathfinder could only send him back to Asgard anyway, unless he figured out how to change the routing through Yggdrasil.

Loki settled on his next goal: get back to Asgard. From there, he should be able to reach Alfheim with little trouble. Getting to Asgard itself could prove difficult. He had no way to make it there tonight, so he needed to find someplace safe to stay until morning; by then he should be able to come up with a plan.

He came up with and discarded several possibilities, and was about to settle on transforming his appearance and trying again to gamble his way into a travelers' lodge, since apparently now that he was evading capture he wasn't being punished for using magic, when a much simpler but much more audacious plan occurred to him. Audacious appealed to him.

Slowly, carefully, making sure he remained invisible, Loki made his way back to Brokk's dwelling. The last place on Svartalfheim anyone would ever look for him.

/

* * *

/

A ram's horn sounded two notes to the east, just minutes after Heimdall's initial warning that he'd seen the beginnings of a portal opening through to Asgard there. This was a traditional army, a traditional attack. This Asgard knew how to respond to. The portal was a large one, allowing 30 or even 35 warriors – all from Svartalfheim – to pour through and onto Asgardian soil. Their attacking force was far larger than any of the earlier individual attacks, based both on what Heimdall had seen developing on Svartalfheim and on the area they'd chosen to launch their attack – an expansive clearing just beyond Asgard's wall. There was no place inside Asgard's walls where this scale of battle could take place.

Asgard's warriors were shifted around to move greater numbers into place to meet the Dark Elves, and Thor arrived as the first warriors emerged from Svartalfheim. Those first few were immediately struck down by the Aesir, but their numbers soon reached a critical mass that permitted Dark Elves to emerge unscathed and begin the real battle.

Thor quickly turned to the task he alone was best suited for, taking to the sky and calling down lightning onto the portal. This portal was much larger, though, and much more resistant to disruption from electrical current, perhaps simply due to its sheer size. He brought down bolt after bolt of lightning and watched as the edges of the portal crackled under the onslaught, occasionally felling a Dark Elf as he ran or rode through, occasionally causing the portal to contract in on itself to a degree, but each time he had a measure of success the portal would rebound and grow back out to its previous size.

He kept trying longer than he should have, probably, out of stubbornness and frustration, but eventually he abandoned the effort and dropped back into the melee on the ground. This, he thought, hurling Mjolnir through a line of emerging warriors, was ultimately less effective than forcing the portal to close, but imminently more satisfying.

"Thor!"

He kept his hand in position to catch Mjolnir upon its return, but swung his head in the direction of Sif's voice – for though he could barely hear it over the roar of battle, it was clearly a woman's voice, and there was only one woman on the battlefield. He found her, and saw that she didn't need his help; she, Fandral, and Volstagg were atop the crest of a small hill, holding their own against a dozen Dark Elves at a time. She met his eyes briefly and lifted her sword, pointing it somewhere off to her right. One of the elves got in a hit to her arm in her distraction, but went down shortly thereafter, as Mjolnir's grip slammed into Thor's palm.

Thor fought the urge to go to her now that she was injured; she was still fighting well. But her sword had pointed toward another small cluster of Aesir who were being overwhelmed. By the time Thor got to that group, three of the five Aesir were down, two of them clearly dead. He slammed Mjolnir to the ground in anger, knocking the attackers that had been converging on them off their feet and some of them unconscious, then began working his way through those who clambered up to stand.

/

* * *

/

Loki made it back to Brokk's dwelling around half an hour after setting off for it. The door was unlocked. Loki let himself in again, and if he was cautious before, he was highly vigilant now. He went through the entire dwelling, lingering in and inspecting each room on each floor, and Brokk was nowhere to be found. The body of the warrior Loki had killed had been removed, but the smeared bloodstains on the floor of the library remained. He found nothing else of note in the home.

In one of Brokk's bathrooms he removed first the useless electronic devices on his wrists, then his black tunic, revealing the long shallow cut Terek had made as his heart beat its last. He stared down at his chest. In the earlier adrenaline rush, he'd barely registered the existence of this minor wound, and hadn't realized the significance of it at all. Thankfully, the blade somehow had not sliced through the thin gold chain around his neck. His mother's gift, red but dull here in the low light, was still there. He was relieved, and not just because he would need it if he ever wanted to make use of the potion in his satchel.

He removed the bloodied strips of the gray tunic, and set about cleaning yet another stab wound, making both the entry wound and the exit wound bleed a little again where the flesh was abraded from the cleaning. He held his left hand just over the entry wound and concentrated on repairing the damaged muscles that had left his arm barely functional. Something was wrong. He removed his hand and inspected the wound. Nothing had changed; there was no sign of any healing at all. He tried again, with the same results.

Loki's breathing sped up and his chest began to ache. Could this be it? Could he already have been bled dry of magic? But he'd made himself invisible not so long ago. He checked the magic he used for it; it was still in place. He looked down at his chest, and the thin diagonal line of dried blood. He cleaned it, found the two areas where the blade had gone a little deeper than a scratch, and discovered he was perfectly capable of healing _that_ wound. _Just how many things about your lovely Ljosalf daggers did you forget to mention, Brokk?_ Instead of feeling for damage to his body he felt for magic in the shoulder wound, and he soon found it. _Magic to prevent the use of magic to heal. Perfect,_ he thought with a scowl. He _hoped_ it only prevented him from using his magic to heal it, anyway.

He found a spool of proper bandages in a supply cabinet in the bathroom and properly dressed the wound, then struggled and groaned over getting his tunic back on. He turned off the transmitter and opened the satchel to put all three of the devices away, then noticed the silver-wrapped food items Jane had sent him to give to Thor. He'd meant to throw them away, but had never really had the chance. Now he was actually hungry. He'd been tempted by the food in Brokk's kitchen, but for all he knew they were enchanted to make anyone who ate them besides Brokk violently ill.

With a sigh he pulled out one of the little packages and opened up the wrapper labeled "Pop-Tart" and "Blueberry." Inside was something resembling a flat rectangular pastry. If it were served freshly made in Asgard, he could imagine it being presented on a dish topped with warm fruit, perhaps with a fresh lightly-sweetened cream. He carried it back upstairs to the above-ground floor so the door would be nearby if he needed it, and settled down in one of Brokk's wicker chairs. It was far from fresh, of course – he wondered how long it had been stored in its thin crinkly package – but he was used to that from his time at the South Pole. He bit into it and found himself exactly as unimpressed as he'd expected. There was something in its center that seemed to be trying to imitate blueberries, at least in color. How infinitely better it would be if it were topped in _actual_ blueberries, of which he was quite fond.

"_Thor likes them,"_ Jane had said, he remembered, rolling his eyes. Of course, Thor would. Thor was just as happy eating plain food cooked over a firepit in the woods as he was indulging in the creations of Asgard's finest cooks. Loki used to be able to say the same. In some ways, he actually used to prefer the things they made as field cooks, he recalled, as he polished off the first of the two pastries and absently went on to the second. But things had changed. _He_ had changed. He was no longer satisfied with anything less than the best. An odd thought occurred to him – would even the best satisfy him now? The Chief Palace Cook, with the best, freshest ingredients all at his fingertips, serving him and him alone, everything prepared and seasoned precisely to his tastes…the idea brought him a certain amount of pleasure, but satisfied? No. He wouldn't be satisfied even with that. Perhaps if Odin and Thor served him. He pictured Odin carrying the dishes to the table to set before him at the head of the table, Thor filling his glass… _"Thor likes them. They're for you to share with him."_

He wished he had an off-switch for Jane's voice.

_Thor can have them._ He crumpled up the empty wrapper, watched it revert right back to its original shape, then pushed it back into the satchel. Leaving trash from Midgard behind in Brokk's home might create unforeseen problems for him later, and it was time for him to start thinking more about the unforeseen.

It was time to plan. He had to get away from Svartalfheim as quickly as possible. There was still Mador, but Loki had already given too much away. Brokk knew about Mador, and every other magic-wielder of renown, just as much as Loki did, and Brokk would know he was likely to go to her next. He only knew how to get to one realm from Svartalfheim: Asgard. Svartalfheim had the ability to forge its own impermanent gateways with a golden talisman and the help of someone with sufficient talent with magic, but the talismans were kept hidden away in secret locations. His other two options were the tree outside Marheim – now likely heavily guarded and layered with new traps on both sides – and the cliff nine or ten days' ride from here, leading to mountains in Asgard. He'd discovered that one only a few hundred years ago, and thankfully had never told Thor, so hopefully it remained known only to him.

To get to that coastal village to the north, he would need money for a horse and for lodging along the way. He wondered if he would be punished for creating money now. He needed it for escape as much as he needed it to get the curses removed on Alfheim. He stood to search for some paper to try repurposing, then wondered if he might not simply search for money in the first place and save himself the trouble. _Unless Brokk has enchanted it to poison the fingers of anyone who steals it._

_Someone has too much time on his hands,_ Loki thought as he began opening drawers and cabinets. _When you learned your little blue flame trick, did you just go wandering the cosmos until you stumbled across _him_? Or did he seek you out?_ He almost laughed at the thought that Odin had actually been right about Brokk.

"_I forbid you to see him ever again, Loki!"_

"_But he's my friend, Father!"_

"_You don't need friends like him. I don't trust him, and you shouldn't either. Why can't you have friends like Thor's?"_

_And oh, how that stung. But Loki didn't want friends like Thor's. He was his own person, and he had long since tired of trying – and failing – to emulate his brother in everything he did. And so partly he liked Brokk because they both enjoyed mischief-making and magic, and partly he liked Brokk because his father and brother didn't. "I'm not a child. You can't tell me who I can and can't spend time with."_

"_Watch your tongue, Loki. You may be grown but I am still your father and your king. My order stands, but since I suspect you will ignore it, I also forbid him from ever setting foot on Asgard again without my express permission, and Heimdall will enforce _this_ command."_

Full of childish spite, Loki had snuck away to Svartalfheim at his first opportunity and promptly taught Brokk how to hide himself from Heimdall's watchful eye. He froze, his gaze on the inside of Brokk's liquor cabinet. _That might not have been the best idea I've ever had,_ he admitted_._ He wasn't yet sure what Svartalfheim and Vanaheim were up to, but if anyone was going to conquer Asgard it would be _him_, not Brokk. And he himself had given Brokk the means to plot against Asgard unseen. _What a revolting thought. _He put his right hand gingerly over his stomach. _Perhaps it's just that substance that masquerades as food on Midgard._

He was about to head downstairs to continue his search when he heard the doorknob turning. He made a quick check of his invisibility and added all the other layers to the magic – dampening any sound he might make, counterbalancing his weight. Since Brokk wasn't looking for him here and he now had nothing of Brokk's on him, Brokk _shouldn't_ perceive any hint of his presence here.

He came in muttering under his breath and locked the door behind him. A much nicer sand-colored version of the cloak Loki had left behind at the tavern swirled around his ankles as he hurried into the center of the room. He fingered the ornate bronze clasp, but instead of unhooking it as Loki expected, he parted the cloak and pushed it over his shoulders. There against the dark blue of his tunic, on a short chain around his neck, Brokk wore one of the oval-shaped golden talismans that Svartalfheim used for portal creation.

Loki smiled. His run of miserable luck was turning. All he had to do was get the talisman from Brokk, and he could go anywhere within the Nine Realms, perhaps even beyond. And _he_ now had the element of surprise on his side. He would have to be careful of his use of magic – assaulting Brokk would surely cost him – but if he crept up behind Brokk, hit him hard in the side to daze him, then wrapped an arm around his neck and applied sufficient pressure in the proper way, he wouldn't need any magic at all before Brokk would be dead on the floor.

He took a step forward, then halted when Brokk touched his left hand to the talisman and reached out with his right. Silver strands of energy formed and crackled together, then grew. To Loki's rather deep surprise, Brokk was opening a gateway right inside his dwelling. Loki took a few careful steps toward Brokk, to the other side of the growing portal, and saw trees and grass and nothing particularly identifiable. Definitely not Jotunheim, probably not Musepelheim. As soon as it was large enough, Brokk stepped through.

Loki wasn't sure why he did it – he supposed it was simple curiosity, or perhaps the need to rectify his earlier mistakes – but he hesitated only for a few seconds before ducking his head and stepping through himself.

/

* * *

/

Loki had been walking for nearly twenty minutes through patchy late afternoon sunlight, his bouncing, slightly awkward steps keeping him a half an inch above the highest part of the ground – in this case wild-grown grasses. He'd known exactly where he was after the first two. At first his smile had spread wide to realize he was back on Asgard and Brokk had saved him the hassle of obtaining funds and making it to the other gateway he knew of on Svartalfheim. But it had quickly faded in the face of unanswered questions. Questions he could no longer ignore. Loki needed only to get to Alfheim. He could still kill Brokk and take the talisman, or he could simply leave and start testing the various means he knew to reach Alfheim. But why was Brokk on Asgard, the realm with which Svartalfheim was at war? Why was he creeping around through a light wood toward a little-used park that lay just outside the wall? So Loki put his own plans aside for the moment and followed.

A few more minutes and they reached the park. Loki noted that it appeared unkempt – grass that hadn't been trimmed, bushes that hadn't been shaped, stone paths that hadn't been cleared of leaves. All of Asgard's many gardens and parks, even those less frequented, were immaculately tended. Loki wondered now if it was a sign that Asgard had more pressing matters to deal with, such as a war against two other realms, or three if Jotunheim was somehow involved. How many such signs had he missed in his single-minded walk through Asgard the day before? He remembered thinking there were more Einherjar out on sentry duty than usual. The closed market that he'd bitterly and half in jest attributed to Thor's second attempt at a coronation. The damaged forest he'd assumed had been struck by a storm. Perhaps it had been struck by Mjolnir. How many other things had he never even seen, though they were right before his eyes? How could he have been so oblivious? _Thor_ strolled around oblivious; Loki stood loyal as a dog at his side, aware of everything around them and informing a so-called brother who ignored him, told him to be silent, to trust that Thor knew best, to know his place. But Loki had never stopped noticing, even if he sometimes stopped informing. Until recently. It troubled him greatly.

He had no more time to dwell on it, however, because a figure was approaching from the distance, draped in a pale blue cloak that concealed the person's identity. Brokk stopped behind a tree whose trunk was easily five times his width, and would conceal him from anyone else approaching. Loki stopped at the side of the tree, all the while taking care that no sign of his presence betrayed him. As the figure came steadily closer, Loki realized it had to be a woman, perhaps one not even fully grown, for her cloak had a feminine cut and her size was somewhat small for an adult.

It wasn't until she reached the tree herself and walked right past him to stand before Brokk that he was able to see enough of her face to confirm it was a woman. A long wisp of red hair had curled down the side of her face and was visible despite the hood she had clasped tightly around her head. Her eyes were puffy and as red as her hair and her hands clenched at the edges of her cloak and pulled it more tightly around her. Loki didn't recognize her.

"What have you learned?" Brokk asked without any preamble.

"I don't know. I don't understand half of what they say. Please, can't you just make this stop? I've done enough. I can't take it anymore."

"Don't be a child. You don't have to understand what they say. You simply have to repeat it back to me, and _I'll_ do the understanding."

"They…they wonder why no new attack has come. They think…the other realms want to make us the aggressor. So we don't attack. A few of them want to fight with magic. A few of them…or, one of them, I suppose, I only heard one, he wants Prince Loki to fight with us."

"Isn't _that_ ironic," Brokk said, and Loki had to agree, though he would probably have put another word to it. Whoever thought that was obviously far out of touch with the new reality. "Who said that?" Brokk asked, and Loki would have thanked him if he wouldn't still prefer to kill him.

"The large one. Volstagg is his name."

A small piece of Loki's heart warmed just a fraction – of all Thor's friends, Volstagg had generally been the friendliest toward him. But it just as quickly iced over again. Volstagg had also belittled him, and betrayed him along with all the rest. He would sooner execute the man for treason than pick up a sword to fight alongside him again.

"Have they made no mention of wanting to capture him?"

"Prince Loki? No, not that I've heard. They hardly ever speak of him, at least not in my presence."

"And their strength?"

"Their…their strength? Oh, the warriors…some of the more seriously injured are able to fight again now. Others are still healing. I didn't hear any numbers, and access to the Healing Room is restricted."

"I'm sure you can find an excuse to get in there. A small injury would do it," Brokk said with a mocking grin.

The young woman took a step back and wrapped her arms even tighter around herself, pulling the cloak so tight Loki could trace the lines of her slim figure despite the shapeless garment.

"What else?"

"That's all. They don't hold all their meetings in the Feasting Hall, or even in the palace. And…I wasn't there for all of it." She fixed her eyes firmly on the ground at the last.

"Why not? Your task is simple, Vigdis. Are you telling me you can't accomplish it?"

"No, I mean… I made a mistake and I was dismissed. I wasn't able to hear anything else. And they won't let me back. It wasn't my first mistake, but it was my worst."

Brokk stepped forward and grasped the girl's – Vigdis's – wrists, yanking them away from her body. "You will do _whatever_ you must to get that job back, you piece of filth. Do you understand me?"

Vigdis whimpered and struggled but she couldn't free herself from Brokk's grip.

"I don't care what it takes. Tell them your mother is old and in poor health and your father has died a war hero and you need that job to provide for her. Tell them you have three fatherless children with hungry mouths. Tell them you have a husband who'll beat you if you don't bring home some money. Offer to be flogged instead of dismissed for your mistakes. Whatever it takes, whatever story will work. You _will_ get that job back. And you will not make further mistakes."

"All right! All right, I'll find a way. I'll figure something out. Please, let go of me!"

Brokk did, with a suddenness that caught her off guard and sent her tumbling backward onto her rear. She cried out, more from the shock than any pain, Loki suspected, feeling nothing but contempt for this pathetic creature, and seeing in her his own weakness from several hours earlier. And then Brokk was taking her hands again, but gently this time, and helping her to her feet.

"I'm sorry, Vigdis. I didn't mean to lose my temper. You don't deserve that. I know you're doing your best, and that you're going to fix everything. I know it isn't easy, but you know you're only doing what you must, don't you?"

She was crying now, and nodding. Brokk put his arms around her and she let him embrace her. He rubbed one of his hands in a circle at the small of her back, and she let her cheek fall against his shoulder. Loki took two steps to the side, just in time to see Brokk rolling his eyes.

"Good. Good girl. I have to hurry back now. You go, make things right. Right now."

"I…I don't think I can right"—Vigdis hiccupped – "now. Svartalfheim is attacking to the east, and no one will take the time to listen to me."

"_Make_ them take the time, Vigdis. Use your head. Tell them you're desperate. You'll do anything. They must have a supply line set up; volunteer to take food out. Do whatever you must."

She started to cry harder again, but she was nodding again as well. Brokk urged her on, and she turned to retrace her steps.

"Stupid girl," Brokk muttered. He glanced around, and, seeing no one, he opened up another portal – back to Svartalfheim, Loki presumed – and stepped through. This time Loki did not follow him. Instead he followed Vigdis, trying to think through everything he'd just heard. He couldn't imagine that any of Asgard's warriors seriously wanted to use magic in their battles; it was unheard of, so dishonorable it was deemed. In the last real war – the war against Jotunheim – as far as Loki knew, the only magic the Aesir had employed was through Odin's own Gungnir, and that was accepted because he was Odin All-Father, king of Asgard, and Gungnir was the symbol of his kingship, much as Mjolnir was the symbol of the expected heir. As for Volstagg, he'd probably been making a jest when he'd said he wanted him fighting alongside them. Volstagg knew enough to know that would never happen, even if no one had managed to inform him of Loki's true birthright.

And then there was Vigdis. Vigdis the Traitor, selling out Asgard to Svartalfheim…for what? Brokk had never referred to anything she might be getting out of this deal, and it didn't even quite sound like Brokk was threatening her with anything in particular, despite his threatening tone. Perhaps Thor had grown weary of being apart from his mortal love and taken up with this servant, only to break her heart when she realized he had no real interest in her; perhaps she was betraying Asgard to get revenge on him. Perhaps she'd just gotten in too deep with something she hadn't understood – she was young, after all, probably just barely of age, with a little growing yet to come – and then been unable to claw her way out of the mess she'd made of her life. He wondered, on a strange tangent, if this traitor would have sold him out as well, or would have sensed in him a kindred spirit and served him truly when all others disobeyed.

He followed Vigdis into the city and down streets even quieter than they had been the day before – no one was out except for her and the Einherjar, several of whom scolded her along the way for being out alone, one of whom finally stopped scolding and escorted her to the palace, where Loki ceased trailing her. He would gain nothing from seeing her beg for her position back except a greatly increased risk of his own detection. He glanced around him, trying to come to a decision. The pull of Alfheim was strong, but he'd been willfully ignorant of what was going on here before, and he'd found himself in unexpected danger because of it. _This_ time he would first learn everything he could before leaving Asgard.

He left the servants' entrance on the west side of the palace and hurried down the empty street in front of it, looking up several times for some evidence of a recent explosion, but he found none. It was unsurprising, really; repairs would have been made swiftly. _Appearances must always be kept up,_ he thought bitterly. As he reached the east side of the palace and the Healing Room came into view, he decided to stop by this newly restricted structure. He rounded the corner to its east side, where the public entrance was – the royal family usually used a private entrance on the corner of the west side – and suddenly the streets were not nearly so empty. A trickle of Aesir warriors were making their way toward him, toward the Healing Room, some under their own power, some being carried.

It was oddly unnerving – for over a millennium he'd considered himself one of these men, even if they hadn't always fully accepted him, and he'd never questioned his assumption that if they fought, he would be fighting with them. With Thor. Thor had been injured, the Aesir on Svartalfheim had said. And not even in battle, but in an explosion he'd had no chance to lift Mjolnir at. _A good lesson for him,_ Loki thought, watching the warriors continue their approach and turn into the Healing Room. _Not every problem is solved with a hammer._ He crept far enough forward that he could look in though the outer doors held open to permit the injured warriors' entry, and wondered how badly Thor had been hurt. He didn't really care; if the storyteller said "injured" and not "dead," Thor would live. The idea of Thor being killed by such a thing, though, that was an unwelcome thought that left him feeling empty inside. _If anyone's going to kill Thor, it's going to be me,_ he thought, and then immediately realized that that was not right either. It shouldn't matter. It _couldn't_ matter. He had no claims to Thor's life or to Thor's death. Thor was nothing to him now. Part of the lie. Part of the past. The past that Loki kept trying to forget, and kept failing to do so.

The past wasn't letting him forget, now. For his own safety, for his own future, he needed to know more. And if Vigdis couldn't get into the Healing Room, he could. He glanced down at his shoulder. He even had the perfect excuse.

He skirted the flow of warriors and stepped behind the corner of another building, making himself visible, calling a light version of his armor over his plain attire – and what a strange sensation it was to wear even this much of it after all this time – and giving himself curly blond hair and a full blond beard. He was braced for the pain but it didn't come, and when he thought about it, he realized he was only there for information and a healed shoulder, and not for any mischief. He stumbled out from behind the tree as though he'd stopped to rest there, and eased his way into the pedestrian traffic. Just inside the entryway two youths were directing the men where to go based on the severity of their injuries; Loki was disappointed to be directed to the left, to an area where most wounds were simply self-treated with a healing stone fresh from the fire pit. The chamber was fast filling up, though, and even here he might learn something.

Loki took a stone from the pit and was annoyed to find there was nowhere to sit. He removed the metal band over his right upper arm and pulled the material of his tunic down to expose the shoulder, then crumbled the stone over it. He should have felt and seen it working, but he saw nothing and felt only continued low-level throbbing pain. He'd hoped it would work, but he hadn't really expected it to. Healing stones healed certain types of wounds; they didn't undo or overcome magic.

He stood behind one the benches where he ought to have been sitting, had these people only recognized that their rightful king was standing among them, and listened, though he wasn't sure for what.

A young brown-haired boy, probably not yet a man, wearing the light blue patches of a healer in training, approached and stood before him. "The stone didn't heal your injury?" the boy asked.

"It did not. It is a vexing injury, caused by an enchanted dagger," Loki said. There was no need to lie; he hoped in fact he could actually get it healed while here.

The boy looked impressed, his eyebrows jumping up to his shaggy hair. "Really? Since when are the Dark Elves fighting with weapons imbued with magic? Let me take a look."

Loki nodded, then started to protest when the boy brought a pair of scissors out from his satchel reached up for his sleeve. He held his tongue and sighed. He supposed he could wear the tunic he wore to bed.

"How long ago did it happen?"

"Perhaps…three hours ago. Or four."

"There's no sign of any healing at all. I…I'm just a trainee," the boy said in preface, but Loki recognized the look on his face – he was desperate to attempt it. "But I'd like to try."

Loki held back a grin. Now wasn't the time. And this boy was as much a fool as any Aesir. Loki wore an even heavier disguise than normal; of course he was accepted. Of course they wanted to assist him. "Go ahead," he said with an indulging smile.

The boy smiled, then frowned as he concentrated hard on trying to heal the wound. Loki could feel him trying, but could also feel him failing. "I don't think I can heal it," he finally said, obviously disappointed. "You're going to need a trained healer. Actually, this is unusual. Let me take you to Eir," the boy said, putting a hand to Loki's back to guide him away.

"No," Loki said immediately. If anyone could recognize him through any disguise other than Odin, it was First Healer Eir. "There's no need for that. It may be unusual but it isn't life-threatening. Let Eir tend to those who need her more urgently. Besides, you've barely tried. You're trying to heal the wound, when what you have to do is remove the magic that prevents it from healing." And, like the marks on his wrist and foot, Loki himself could not extricate this magic from his own body.

Loki stood there for nearly half an hour while the boy worked and worked on his shoulder, and little by little the layer of magic preventing healing was being removed. Then a girl with similar trainee patches came by and harangued the boy for spending all his time on one patient – _I am your king,_ Loki thought, scowling at her – and he apologized and left, directing him again to see a trained healer. Under other circumstances Loki might have asked for his name; the boy had promise. But it was highly unlikely Loki would ever see him again.

His black sleeve now hanging detached over a gold bracer, Loki swept the removed arm band from sight and turned his attention to the conversations around him. Three warriors stood against the wall, one leaning heavily on one of the others and speaking in hushed tones. Loki drifted their way, made sure not to look at them or otherwise draw their attention, and listened.

"Jotunheim? No one cares about Jotunheim. And no Frost Giants have attacked, as far as I know. Where did you get such a foolish idea?"

"Not Jotunheim itself. Loki used the bifrost as a weapon against them, and it broke the truce."

_You're a few deeds behind,_ Loki thought bitterly. _The Frost Giants broke the truce themselves. I hardly forced them to come for their casket at knifepoint. And of course Thor had no part in any of it whatsoever, perfect son of Odin that he is._

"-want it back. That's all they've _ever_ wanted. They're so lazy they just sit around on their ice floes all day pining over it, while their realm falls to ice chips around them, the blockheads."

"As if you knew anything about it. You've never been to Jotunheim."

"I've heard. And I'll tell you what else I heard. They want the Ice Casket, and they want Loki handed over to them."

_Do all the Nine Realms want to see me handed over to Jotunheim?_ Loki thought, mostly in jest at the absurdity of it.

"This is all about Loki and the Ice Casket?"

The man leaning against his friend scoffed. "We should hand them both over. Even if they had the casket back, they're no match for us, not on their own. And Loki…he's a traitor. I say let them have him."

Loki took a sudden interest in the injury to his shoulder, to avoid revealing the rage he was not quite able to contain. He was no traitor. He had sought a new order in the realms, one that would have made Asgard's supremacy unquestioned. Yes, he had let Frost Giants into Asgard not once but twice. But both times had been for the good of Asgard. At least that was what Loki vehemently told himself.

One of the other men was glancing around nervously, and Loki felt his gaze on him, but it didn't linger. "Watch your tongue, Dagg," he whispered. "Loki is still a prince, and technically _you_ are speaking treason. Besides, I heard they want the tesseract, too."

"I don't know what that thing does, but the way they protect it, it must be powerful. If the other realms want it, too, it's probably the only reason we don't just give them Loki and the casket. _That_ price is too high."

"Why are you so quick to want to cave in to their demands? That's not our way. No one's going to take something from Asgard that the All-Father doesn't want to give, not while _I'm_ still alive."

"If we don't find a way to make a truce, you won't have to worry about that too much longer. I'll stand and fight as hard as the next Aesir, but don't be naïve. We're fighting seven realms. If they all came through those portals they keep making, they could just trample us to death without raising a weapon."

"Don't be an idiot. The Fire Giants and the Frost Giants, perhaps _they_ could trample us, but the rest will in fact have to raise a weapon," one of them said, the others chuckling in response.

Loki barely heard the last, and never heard whatever was said next. His mind was reeling. _Seven realms? How is that possible? That means every realm except Midgard. Seven realms?! Alfheim, too, then. _Anywhere Loki went throughout the realms, with the sole exception of Midgard, he was wanted. _Seven realms? Seven realms have never united over anything, ever, in the known history of the realms, and now they unite against Asgard? Asgard, which has friendly relations with all of them except Jotunheim? How could such a thing happen? It's not possible…_

And then he knew. Thanos. Brokk. His failure to win Midgard and deliver the tesseract. He didn't know how, but he had no doubt about who, what, and why.

* * *

/

_BTW, _Any Other Child_ won in the informal polling, by a narrow margin, over _Slow Poison_, with _Eighteen_ in third place. So what did I do? I wrote something entirely different on Mother's Day. Ha. (But otherwise I'll try to prioritize _Any Other Child_ as my backup or "notebook" story.) This one's called _Better Than Jewels_...unless I change my mind. But I can't decide if I want to put it up, because it's kinda spoilery (though not in a plot way) for Beneath, which will also eventually include a telling of this tale, of the "Odin brings Loki home" story. I came up with a second Mother's Day themed Loki/Frigga story at the same time, and the sudden Loki/Frigga inspiration I blame on chats with Sietha. ;-) But probably many of you contributed because several reviewers mentioned liking the fact that Loki's instinct was to go to his mother when he feared she might be injured. My brain doesn't stop with this stuff. It probably should. Sleep is good. My lack of it is why you're getting this particular somewhat rambling message here._

_Yet again, thank you for reading, thank you for reviewing, thank you for giving me more and more story ideas. ;-) I am so glad to have made so many of your acquaintance. Speaking of, someone mentioned a fanvid to me...and in my disorganization from the travel I can't find that message anymore, or who sent it. Please remind me!_

_Previews from Ch. 49: Loki further explores the Healing Room and sees something, and someone(s), that bothers him; I got to write another flashback, which always makes me happy; a tipping point is reached in which Loki now knows more about everything going on than any one person in Asgard; Lucas gets an invitation to a celebration he might have a wee bit of trouble attending; Loki re-evaluates his plans again; and he's _really_ going to need to visit a tailor and pick up some new tunics._

_And excerpt:_

"Get yourself treated," said a gruff-sounding heavily muscled warrior matching their pace, holding a red-stained cloth over a gash just above his ear. Loki immediately recognized him as one of his former trainers. "The Dark Elves sent us an army, but we've moved in reinforcements from the northern and western sectors. We can handle them."

Loki kept his head down and nodded; the veteran warrior soon broke off and entered a chamber to the left. He lost track for a moment of where he was. Something bothered him about what the man had said, something just on the edge of consciousness, just out of reach.


	50. (49) Shadows

**Beneath**

**Chapter Forty-Nine – Shadows**

_Seven realms united in war against Asgard._ Leaning against a wall in the healing room, Loki struggled to come to terms with everything he'd just learned, and most importantly what it meant for him. Regarding his most immediate plans, it meant he was no better off seeking assistance on Alfheim than he was on Svartalfheim.

"Hey, you, I told you, you need to go to one of the chambers set up for severe injuries," the healer-in-training said, pulling Loki from his thoughts. He was treating a leg wound several feet away from him. "I don't have time to do it myself, it'll take me too long, if I could finish it at all."

Loki nodded and moved away from the wall to comply, or at least to pretend to, not wanting to draw any further attention to himself.

"Thanks for letting me try, by the way. I've never done anything like that before."

Loki responded with a polite but cool nod, and slipped out of the room before the boy could seek further interaction. He was almost back to the outer door, a cluster of healed warriors rushing past him, when he heard a woman's voice calling for "you with the magic-infused injury." Loki paused, recalling for half a second what it felt like to sit on Asgard's throne and be addressed as "Your Majesty." He turned to face the woman who'd called to him.

"Eir wants to see you. Come with me." She put a hand firmly against the small of his back and immediately began urging him along, past the outer door.

Loki kept his head still but cast his gaze around him constantly. The central corridor was full of warriors and healers; any attempt to flee at this point would put him in great danger. But so would attempting to fool Eir with this flimsy disguise, no more than a change of hair color, a beard, simple attire. Lying to her at all would be a challenge – he'd rarely tried it, had rarely wanted to. If Loki had ever been completely honest, or very close to it, with anyone it was with her, because she'd always been completely honest with him. Which was ironic, because he'd realized during his time with The Other that Eir had been his personal liar as well as his personal healer. There had to be a reason even his most insignificant childhood injuries and illnesses were treated by Eir, while Thor's skinned knees and runny noses had been treated by whichever healer was on duty. She knew what he was.

"That boy's work was sufficient. I need to get back to the battle," Loki said, trying to reverse his direction.

"Fridulf didn't even get to the healing, and he said he only removed part of the magic. You wouldn't be able to life a sword," the woman said, her arm a firm pressure against his back. Loki couldn't get away from her without causing a scene.

"Get yourself treated," said a gruff-sounding heavily muscled warrior matching their pace, holding a red-stained cloth over a bleeding gash just above his ear. Loki immediately recognized him as one of his former trainers. "The Dark Elves sent us an army, but we've moved in reinforcements from the northern and western sectors. We can handle them."

Loki kept his head down and nodded; veteran warrior Sorkvir soon broke off and entered a chamber to the left. He lost track for a moment of where he was. Something bothered him about what Sorkvir had said, something just on the edge of consciousness, just out of reach.

The healer ushered him into the most private area of the healing room complex, where the most dire or strange cases were treated, or where senior figures including the royal family could be given special attention. Comfortable sofas lined the walls of this vestibule, but no one else, including Eir, was there.

"Wait here. Eir's busy. We all are. But she wants to see you. We haven't seen any other cases like yours from this war."

Loki dutifully sat, but stood again as soon as the woman hurried off. There were two doors. The one nearest him, to his right, led back out to the main corridor and eventually to the exit. The door to the left led to the private rooms he knew well from his childhood and youth. Where his mother might be, if she had been injured badly enough to still be here. He crossed the vestibule and went through the far door.

The doors along this empty corridor were solid, meant to protect the privacy of those within. He began systematically checking the rooms on both sides, taking just a couple of silent steps in to see who was there. Some rooms were empty, others housed a sleeping patient or someone who looked up at him in confusion. He couldn't linger long here. He reached the end of the corridor and stepped into the next-to-last room, then froze in place. He hadn't recognized any of the six others he'd seen, but this face he knew well, and in fact could not remember ever _not_ knowing it.

Jolgeir. One of the Einherjar charged with protecting him and Thor before they came of age, and the only one of them Loki had ever gotten to know on something of a personal basis. Now Chief Palace Einherjar – the last Loki knew, anyway – he lay flat on his back in bed, covered up to his neck in a thick blue blanket, head supported by a pillow covered in white linen.

Jolgeir angled his head in Loki's direction. "Who's there? I can tell someone's there. I can see the shadows. Announce yourself."

"_Who's there?" Jolgeir demanded, falling still and silent as he neared the end of the corridor._

_Loki remained in position, doing his best to quiet even his heartbeat, which now seemed unnaturally loud._

"_Loki?" he asked._

_Loki sighed and stepped out from the shadows, where he'd flattened himself against the wall behind the narrow protrusion of a support column running alongside the stairs. "How did you _do_ that? I know I never made a sound."_

"_You didn't. But there was a slight difference in the shade of the shadows. And after nine years, I know the shadows on this corridor very well."_

_Loki shook his head. There was always something more to take into account. "I'll _never_ be as good at this as you are." He was nineteen, soon to no longer have Einherjar nursemaids dedicated to his safety and protection everywhere he went; when he turned twenty, Jolgeir would be taking over as head of his younger brother Baldur's security team._

"_I've had a few centuries of practice, Loki," he said with a chuckle. "But you're already very good. You had only the time that I made my patrol to the other end of the corridor and turned back to get from your chambers and into position. I never heard a thing."_

_A grin spread over Loki's face. "I didn't come from my chambers. I came from the stairs."_

_Jolgeir's eyebrows went up, disappearing underneath his helmet. "I'm impressed. Clearly I need to pay more attention to the stairs on my patrols. You'll make me a better Einherjar, Prince Loki."_

Jolgeir's face set into something fierce, and he sat up slowly. The covers fell from his bare chest as he did so, and Loki couldn't stop a gasp at what he saw. Where there should have been arms there were only stumps, ending not far below the shoulder.

Ancient memories came flooding back. Memories of Jolgeir's arms, warm and strong and safe. The incident he'd dreamed about under The Other's manipulation, but hadn't been able to recall the reality of afterward. Now he remembered. He and Thor had been out mushroom-picking with two of their nursemaids, and the women were lingering over their picnic lunch in a forest clearing while the boys ran around playing. Their running about brought them in sight of a lake with a long narrow pier. Loki had hated the water then, and Thor predictably had completely ignored what Loki thought. _"Don't worry, Loki, it'll be fun! I'll hold onto you." _Thor probably said other things – he talked enough for the both of them in those days – but Loki mostly remembered _"It'll be fun,"_ and how convinced Thor sounded of it, no matter how little of his enthusiasm Loki shared. He saw it all again in the blink of an eye, a child's eye.

"_Give me your feet."_

_Five-year-old Loki obediently lifted first one foot, then the other, for his six-year-old brother to tug off his boots._

"_Come on, hurry, they'll see us," Thor said, taking Loki's hand and running for the pier._

"_I don't want to, Thor," Loki said again softly when they stopped almost at the end of the pier. His gaze was fixed worriedly on the smooth silver surface of the lake._

_Thor was busy pulling his tunic over his head and didn't seem to hear him. "Loki, come on!" he urged when his tunic was laying on the dock and Loki's was still on. Thor started pulling at the hem, and Loki put his arms up to let Thor take it off. Loki's ability to speak withered away under his crushing fear. As soon as the tunic was off and his vision clear of it his eyes were again locked on the water._

"_Let's go," Thor said, once more grabbing for Loki's hand and running. In just a few steps they were at the pier's edge; Loki stopped, but Thor did not, and Loki was pulled over the edge by Thor's grip on his hand._

_His mouth opened but he didn't cry out; water immediately rushed in. His eyes were squeezed shut and though he desperately wanted up he wasn't sure where up was. He thrashed about in a panic, kicking and thrashing harder when he felt something grabbing at his arms and legs. His head broke the surface finally; he could tell because he was suddenly gulping mostly air instead of water. Thor was shouting at him and reaching for his arms, but he slipped below the surface, choking on more water, then struggling and churning up water and losing sight of where up was again._

_Then there were strong arms under his, lifting him from the water. He was pressed against a warm armored chest, his head over a shoulder, a hand lightly thumping his back. He coughed up water. The man began to move forward and, on the burst of adrenaline still coursing through him, Loki clutched his arms around the man's neck as though clinging to life itself, and his legs gripped the man's sides. He didn't know and didn't care in the slightest who was holding him, but once they were out of the water his eyes opened to slits and he recognized the golden orange of the fabric beneath his chin, then the dark hair, almost as dark as his, against his cheek._

_Jolgeir. In that moment, he loved Jolgeir as much as he had ever loved any member of his family. His nursemaids approached, but he refused to let go of Jolgeir, who carried him all the way back to the palace and to his mother, who Loki finally allowed himself to be passed to. Thor, who followed with the women, was crying at his feet, but Loki ignored him, intending never to talk to him again forever. He slept between his parents that night, and the next morning Thor made a supervised apology that ended with both boys crying and then hugging. When Mother took them out to play after breakfast, as soon as Loki caught sight of Jolgeir keeping watch he ran to him with outstretched arms, and Jolgeir scooped him up into his own muscled arms, gentle and caring although they held weapons far more often than five-year-old boys._

"Announce yourself this instant," Jolgeir commanded, and if Loki hadn't seen him he would think the man held a sword in each hand.

Loki tore his eyes away from the missing arms and noticed the reddening of Jolgeir's face, the trembling of the muscles in his torso, and he realized how much effort it was costing him to sit up like that without the support of arms.

"Lie back," he quickly said, pitching his voice a little lower, but otherwise unconcerned that Jolgeir might recognize his voice; the two had barely spoken since the days after Baldur's death. "I'm a healer. Here to check on you." He stepped further into the room, reaching the foot of the bed.

"Ah," Jolgeir simply said, his voice tight, then released a quick gasp of air when his head made it back to the pillow.

"I'm new to your case. Please tell me what has happened to you."

Jolgeir chuckled, and Loki watched his eyes, which stared blankly at the ceiling. "If I have to do that, you still have many years of training ahead of you, friend. And perhaps a check of your own vision."

"I can see" – Loki grimaced – "the results. But what caused your injuries?"

"The explosion in the throne room. They say I was close to the wall that exploded, and I must have been reaching for something. I don't remember it."

Loki continued to stare. He wasn't sure what exactly he'd pictured before, once he'd learned Asgard was at war, but it wasn't this. _It wasn't…it wasn't this._ He stepped closer and pulled the blanket back up to Jolgeir's neck, as it had been before. "I…I heard the queen was nearby when it happened."

"The queen? No, she was in her chambers, so I was told."

Loki's eyes drifted closed in relief. "That is good," he simply said. The Aesir storyteller on Svartalfheim had been mistaken. His eyes opened again, narrowed in suspicion. The Aesir storyteller was masquerading as Vanir. He was _lying._ He was _manipulating._ He was attempting to persuade the tavern's patrons that Vanaheim, Svartalfheim's new ally, had acted dishonorably. Treacherously. Killing unarmed women, nearly killing the queen, when the queen had in fact been nowhere near the explosion. He was attempting to sway the populace to oppose the war, perhaps one tavern at a time. By himself this lone Aesir would have little impact, but if part of a larger plan, it was brilliant. Loki wondered who had thought of such a plan, for it sounded like something he might have proposed, and all of Asgard would have derided him for it.

"The king was nearby but unharmed," Jolgeir was saying meanwhile, and Loki turned his attention back to the Einherjar. "Prince Thor was much closer and was injured, but they told me he's recovered fully."

Loki swallowed. "That is also good," he managed to get out. He didn't wish to dwell on Thor, although it was beginning to seem unavoidable.

"All of Asgard breathed a sigh of relief. You know, centuries ago, over a millennium ago now, I suppose, I provided security for both the princes when they were children. I was fond of them both. Full of enough energy and mischief to keep an Einherjar on his toes. If only we had both of them here fighting for us."

Loki opened his mouth but no words would come. Known for his skill with words, he was, for all intents and purposes, speechless. He resented Jolgeir along with all the rest of the Aesir. Did Jolgeir, too, know what he really was? Were the ones tasked with his protection told exactly what they were protecting? Jolgeir had seemed to care, had seemed fond of him. He could have let him slip beneath the surface of the water one final time, and the bastard prince would have been no more. Of course, he would certainly have lost his position then, and Thor would have been devastated to lose his obedient little shadow. Saving him, no matter the secrets of his birth, was the only logical course of action, he thought with acid in his throat.

But maybe, maybe, Jolgeir had simply seen a terrified child starting to drown and saved him out of selfless compassion.

_Selfless compassion,_ Loki scoffed, his lips twisting into something ugly under his beard and mustache. _You say you wish for me here because you know you still risk treason if you don't._ Jolgeir had also arrested him for Baldur's murder.

"I must go," Loki said, turning on his heel.

"Wait!" Jolgeir called; Loki stopped and turned back. "I thought you… Eir had just finished working on my shoulder, and she was about to give my eyes another treatment. She thinks my vision will return in time. But then the attack came and she had to get everything ready. Perhaps you could treat my eyes?"

Loki looked at the man, now lifting his neck and turning his gaze in Loki's direction. His healing skills went well beyond basic field medicine, many of them learned from Eir herself, but he knew very little about eyes. "I'm sorry, I cannot. It's beyond my training."

"You could try. I trust you."

_He knows._ The thought burned through Loki's brain. He wasn't sure how Jolgeir knew, and he wasn't even sure how he knew that Jolgeir knew. It was irrelevant, though. _He knows._ He tensed, preparing to make yet another escape. But Jolgeir neither called him out nor said anything further at all. He simply lay there, eyes turned in his direction.

In the end it was Loki who broke the silence. "You've always been good at seeing what can't be seen. I'm sure your eyes will be fine."

"I hope you're correct. I won't be able to resume my duties if my eyesight doesn't return," Jolgeir said with a wry smile that didn't quite convey the humor it seemed intended to. Lacking arms with which to raise weapons or even to pull children from lakes, Jolgeir was never going to resume his duties. Others would guard the palace and its inhabitants; others would fight the wars.

Loki pictured the men fighting even now, defending the realm he'd been told was his, the realm he'd ruled, the realm he detested, the realm he never wished to see again unless it was from the vantage point of the throne, the realm he _needed to leave_.

He was about to turn to go a second time, when the unknown thing that had been bothering him earlier came to mind again, this time tying itself to the battle he'd just been imagining. "The battle is where…to the east? And reinforcements have been pulled from the west and the north?"

Jolgeir furrowed his brow. "I don't know about any reinforcements, but yes, the attack was outside the wall, to the east."

"_Not the Felingard Forest. Not if you want him to live," _the Svartalf warrior Terek had said. The Felingard Forest was to the west. "Then they are vulnerable to the north and west now." Loki hesitated. This wasn't his battle, it wasn't his war, it wasn't his realm. But he would not see Gullveig nor any other interloper on Asgard's throne. "They are vulnerable in the Felingard Forest."

Surprise flashed over Jolgeir's face, followed by worry. "My horn, where's my ram's horn? Do you see it?" He began to lift himself into a sitting position again.

"On the table near the head of the bed. To your left," Loki said, turning a third and final time to leave. He heard a grunt from Jolgeir and the rustling of bedcovers and looked over his shoulder to see he'd already started pivoting and twisting and rocking and working his legs over the side of the bed. "And you should speak to a palace servant named Vigdis," he said, just as he reached the door. A loud thud was Jolgeir's only response. Loki did not turn again as he opened the door and walked out. He wasn't here to look out for Jolgeir or anyone else other than himself. Besides, Jolgeir was both strong and clever; no fall was going to stop him, and he would probably see assistance as an insult, were Loki inclined to provide it.

Loki was about halfway back down the corridor to the private wing's vestibule when the door ahead of him started to open, started to close, then jerkily opened wider and someone came through, awkwardly holding the door open with the side of an arm while leaning heavily on two wooden canes, a bulging satchel hanging on one shoulder. Loki dropped his head to hide his shock – and his face in general – when he realized it was Hogun.

"Who are you?" Hogun asked, that ever-present note of suspicion in his voice, which betrayed no weakness.

Loki knew him well enough to know that he hadn't given him any cause for true suspicion; it was simply Hogun's nature to be suspicious and skeptical. The only people who should be in this wing were patients, healers, and approved visitors. Loki also knew how to respond to prevent any escalation of his suspicion. He lifted his head, displaying complete confidence. "Mika Alfarson," Loki said, pitching his voice entirely differently from his own, lower, a little quicker, different cadence. "I was visiting my cousin after getting my own injury treated. Who are _you_?" He said the last just a couple of feet from Hogun, as he passed him, meeting his gaze in challenge, conveying resentment over his presence here being questioned by someone with a name and a position but no real authority. Resentment over Hogun questioning the king he'd taken a knee before not so long ago. Resentment over Hogun having more sway in the palace than he did. A thousand years of resentments. It was an easy role to play. He reached the door, pulled it open, and strode through.

/

* * *

/

In the middle of the night, Jane lay awake looking at the stars glowing from her ceiling, the stars Pepper had sent. Tomorrow was Monday. Technically, it was already tomorrow. Loki wasn't coming back. He was safe on Asgard. He had to be; the alternative was too horrific to contemplate. Monday was another D-Day: decision day. Lucas was gone, and he wasn't coming back. She'd racked her brains to come up with some way of explaining his absence that wouldn't result in her life here becoming a living hell.

The more she'd thought about it, the more she'd realized that the reaction to the fact that Lucas Cane was actually Loki, wasn't going to be positive in more ways than she'd initially thought. It was going to be directed at her. She would be blamed. No longer would she be the formerly anti-social scientist. Now she would be That Person who brought the guy last seen trying to destroy Manhattan to the safest place on Earth. Unwittingly so, but she doubted that would win her many points back, since she'd also failed to tell anyone about it after she learned the truth. She would be an outcast. A leper. Maybe Rodrigo would still be nice to her. He was nice to everyone.

She could say she'd killed him…and dropped his body down a crevasse somewhere… Not much of an improvement in her ability to live a normal life here. She could say he was just missing, just disappeared, but in the long history of the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, that had never happened. A few people had died, yes, but no one just disappeared. She would never be able to say any of that stuff with a straight face, anyway.

No, it was going to have to be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Mostly. Maybe.

She groaned and rolled over, pressing her face into the pillow.

When her alarm clock went off she was so tired she didn't realize what that annoying sound was or where it was coming from for a couple of minutes. She had a headache and downed as much water as she could take, then got ready to face the day. To face the decisions she still had to make. She sat down at her laptop and powered it up. Still no new e-mails, she saw, scrunching up her face. She hadn't had any new ones since…Friday? She checked. Yes, Friday. The day before Loki left.

Realization dawned on her. He wasn't doing some magic thing on her e-mails, making sure she didn't tell anyone about him; he'd somehow broken into her e-mail account. She didn't send or receive anything without him seeing and approving it first, or at least that was what seemed most likely. Great. _You couldn't fix that before you left?_ And then there were the heebie-jeebies that came from knowing Loki had read every single e-mail she'd sent and received the whole time she'd been here. While she accused everyone else around her – in her mind at least – of being a spy.

She still had VOIP…unless he'd done something to that too…and she still had the sat phones. Those worked, or else he wouldn't have been so eager to make sure she returned the one she'd commandeered. She shuddered remembering that confrontation in the hallway. It seemed like ages ago but not quite a week had gone by since then.

It was mid-afternoon on the east coast of the US, where Tony was, as far as she knew, and where SHIELD was headquartered. A great time to call.

She left and went to grab some breakfast. Made-to-order egg-white omelet. She scowled again at Loki's distaste for the food here. She figured she'd never eaten better – or more regularly – since childhood, though she did miss the fresh vegetables and real milk. Even then, at least there was the greenhouse, and the occasional fresh tomato or zucchini or cabbage. Macy who ran the greenhouse happened to join her then, and Jane was glad of the distraction.

Afterward Jane walked slowly to the Science Lab. It was tempting not to call anyone until she had left here. Calling SHIELD made sense when Loki was actually still here. What was the point of it now? _"Yeah, Loki, he was here, but no need to go breaking out the big guns, he's gone already, not coming back. Just thought I'd let you know."_ A courtesy call, or an FYI. What was SHIELD going to do about it? Write it down in a file somewhere? She didn't need a rescue anymore.

The only reason to call them was because of Lucas's disappearance. And a restless night hadn't given her any more brilliant ideas about that one. Only increasingly absurd ones. _"Lucas? Lucas who? Never heard of him. Extreme isolation, constant light followed by constant darkness, constant cold followed by more constant cold…you all must have hallucinated this Lucas person!"_

She circled back to the same place she'd been before: the truth. Lucas was Loki. Loki left.

_Oh, no._ Her stomach dropped, and somehow she kept walking without displaying much of the panic she suddenly felt. Loki _left_. She couldn't just say he left. She would have to explain how. _Why did I never think _that_ one through?!_ Pathfinder. No one knew about it. SHIELD would never have approved her use of it, had they known about it. She'd just sent someone outside their solar system, possibly to an entirely different galaxy. She'd gotten in trouble with them once for not getting permission before she powered up a new piece of equipment for the first time. She was supposed to be doing wormhole research here. She'd let herself get talked into pushing forward with Pathfinder and taking what some might, justifiably, call unethical actions. She would have groaned out loud had she not already reached the Science Lab.

A small cluster of researchers – nearly everyone from the Dark Sector and one person from the Clean Sector – had gathered around Wright, sitting at his computer. Selby was at his side, pointing to something on the screen. Jane shot him a glare. The one person she would have felt remotely comfortable talking to about all this.

Except maybe Loki himself. And that stung like acid.

"Hey, Jane, come take a look," Carlo said, catching sight of her and signaling her over.

Selby continued with his explanation of what they were looking at as Wright flipped through several different charts. He didn't need to start over; she realized almost immediately what had them so excited. The South Pole Telescope team thought they'd identified another galaxy cluster via distortions in the Cosmic Microwave Background. She should have been excited. This work dovetailed nicely with her own, because of its relevance to the understanding of dark energy. But she'd hardly thought about dark energy at all since discovering Yggdrasil. They'd discovered what they hoped was a galaxy cluster. She had collected imagery from what may well be another galaxy, and invented intergalactic travel.

She'd caught Lucas's – Loki's – enthusiasm, motivated as it was by something that fell slightly short of the joy of scientific discovery, and she could try to blame his manipulation and lies, but once she'd realized the possibilities of what they'd discovered, she hadn't needed anyone to manipulate her into pursuing it. He'd pushed at times, but if she were honest with herself, she would have gotten there on her own, anyway. Her enthusiasm had been just as strong as Loki's, if not quite as single-minded.

"Anybody home?" Austin was saying, along with a light nudge to her shoulder.

"Yeah, sorry, what?"

"Party tonight, Foster, we're celebrating out at the DSL. Wanna join? I should mention your invitation is contingent on you coughing up a bottle of booze," Wright said.

She glanced at Selby, who seemed to be taking pains to busy himself with something that required him to look away from her. Awkward…but she'd done that before. She could deal with awkward. "Red wine okay?" she asked.

"Wine doesn't count as booze, but fine, we'll make an exception."

"Oh, make sure Lucas knows about it too, okay?" Austin said.

"As long as you explain the price of admission," Wright put in.

Jane nodded and smiled weakly.

/

* * *

/

Loki stepped inside a bathroom within the Healing Room and never came out. Not that anyone noticed, anyway. He had removed his fourth ruined tunic and pulled on the black one he wore to sleep in, then replaced the metal arm band he'd removed from his right arm. When he left, he looked like himself again, but no one could see him. The curse did not activate. He understood now, better than ever. It was all about motivation. True intent. Loki still wasn't sure what he intended now, but his immediate goal was no longer the removal of the curses.

He could still try going to one of several elves he knew on Svartalfheim or Alfheim, but the risk was great. That didn't mean he dismissed the idea, but it did mean he couldn't repeat his earlier mistake and go rushing in with nothing but a single-minded goal and ignorance. And arrogance. Just because he didn't wish something to be his concern didn't mean it wasn't. He would need to go in with plans of defense, plans of attack, plans to manipulate, detailed reviews of everything he knew of whichever person he would go to. He would need time to come up with those plans. And somewhere away from here to do it.

He couldn't stay. He couldn't be caught and imprisoned again. He couldn't fight for Asgard or for Odin in this false skin, some additional disguise on top of it. He couldn't fight for the other realms against Asgard only to see Gullveig or Nadrith or who knew who else…Thanos? – Loki shuddered – sitting on the throne. Perhaps he could come in near the end, when everyone was weakened, and reclaim the throne himself then.

The safest place in all the Nine Realms for him, the one realm not involved in this intergalactic war, ironically enough, was the realm he'd been on for the previous two months. He wondered briefly if he'd been forgotten there all this time, if anyone remembered or cared where he was. But like all other thoughts born of sentiment, he pushed it aside.

He made his way out of the Healing Room complex with some difficulty; four times he was bumped into and had to quickly slip past confused warriors who could not find who they'd collided with. He walked back toward the main east-west avenue, then further off of it when the few warriors traversing it on horseback grew into a steady stream, followed by others on foot. Jolgeir then had probably gotten his message out.

Loki reached into his satchel and again pulled out the devices he and Jane had modified, and strapped one to each wrist. Pathfinder _had_ to work now. If it didn't, if Jane had turned it off, if it had somehow simply stopped working, he would have a problem. With all of his traveling between the realms he had lost track of how much time had passed – a day and a half? Two days? There were no other routes to Midgard, he supposed because it was simply too far away, the most distant in the World Tree from Asgard. It wasn't entirely true, actually; there was one that Loki had discovered a few hundred years ago, faint and weak. It had taken years beyond its discovery before Loki was able to get it to actually establish a gateway and take him somewhere. Unfortunately where it had taken him was about five feet above a Midgardian ocean, which he'd promptly fallen into. He'd long since gotten over his fear of water, but this water that stretched for as far as his eyes could see with no sign of land was too much. There was nothing to mark the portal entrance on the Midgardian side, so in something of a panic he'd gotten the gateway to open again as quickly as he could and returned to Asgard dripping with salt water he'd known was of Midgard only because he was later able to identify one of the creatures he'd seen swimming in the water. With Gungnir he could have temporarily re-directed the gateway location on Midgard's side, but the staff was back in Odin's hands now.

If he was going back to Midgard to recuperate and plan, it was going to have to be via Pathfinder.

He took what he hoped would be a last look around him, ready to retrieve the RF switch in his satchel to turn on the transmitter. His eyes fell on the little round wooden building that temporarily housed the tesseract.

He could also use the tesseract for travel. He'd seen and felt it done, he believed he could do it.

But he could use it for so much more. To travel to Vanaheim and hunt down Gullveig, make him suffer. To unlock its mysteries, _truly_ learn its workings – not just what he'd claimed to The Other. To turn its workings on Thanos and his lackey and destroy them piece by piece. To take Asgard. Volstagg wanted him to fight with them? He could fight for _and_ against them, controlling the game behind the scenes until every realm was too exhausted and depleted to continue. He would come as Asgard's salvation. And not just Asgard, he could rule the Nine. Eight anyway. Midgard could rot. Seven. On Jotunheim he would finish what he started. Afterward Yggdrasil would connect the Eight Realms. He ducked into a shadowed corner, brought out his sword, made it invisible.

Pathfinder was ignored.

He made his way carefully to the observatory, making a slow spiral circle around it as he approached. It was heavily guarded. A dozen Einherjar around it, another ten he spotted concealing themselves in the shadow of the nearest building, on a nearby roof, among bushes, behind trees, in tree limbs. He knew all these tactics. He couldn't believe how blind he'd been to not see the one hiding in the tree near the cave that hid the gateway to Svartalfheim. He'd never even bothered to look.

He made up for his earlier tunnel vision with extra caution, pausing to think, to look, after each step. He saw no cause for concern, nothing unexpected or out of the ordinary, with one glaring exception: Heimdall was not present. Heimdall guarded the bifrost, and with the bifrost dead, he guarded Asgard's sole other reliable means of travel among the realms. He didn't hide; the idea was rather comical. Heimdall meant to intimidate, through his physical bearing, his sword, his attire, his penetrating gaze, his deep voice. Loki didn't know how long this war had been going on, how many battles had already been fought – Hogun's injuries didn't look like they'd just happened. Heimdall could have also been injured. There was one door he hadn't checked at the end of the corridor in the private wing of the Healing Room – that room _could_ have held Heimdall.

He could think of no other reason that Heimdall wouldn't be here. He stopped short, having then thought of another. If this was all a diversion, meant to draw out an attack, and the tesseract wasn't kept here anymore, then Heimdall wouldn't be here either; he'd be wherever the tesseract actually was. Loki altered his course to allow him a good look through one of the windows. The structure was guarded precisely as it was when he was sent to Midgard, other than Heimdall's absence. Through the window, he saw the tesseract sitting atop a pedestal, again precisely as it had been when he departed. He tried to test it for any signs of magic that shouldn't be there, signs of an illusion, or a transformation. He didn't find it, but there was protective magic surrounding it, and even that was difficult to pin down, due to the sheer energy the tesseract itself emitted – gamma radiation, this particular energy would be called on Midgard – even when not in use.

A ram's horn sounded twice in the distance, to the west, obviously enchanted because he looked up and could tell exactly where it came from – very near the eastern edge of the Felingard Forest. As his eyes scanned the horizon he noticed a dark gray patch like a low diffuse cloud, standing out against the clear blue late afternoon sky. _Fire?_ he wondered. He didn't know exactly where the source of the cloud was, but it stood to reason it was in the same area. The area where Terek had advised Brokk not to leave him if he wanted him to live.

Loki was curious. But he couldn't go lurking around Asgard forever.

He resumed his spiral toward the observatory entrance, pausing four feet away from it, three feet away from the nearest Einherjar, standing at either side of it. He looked down at his feet, just above the grass – not a blade should be bent underneath him. The Einherjar blinked, shifted on their feet occasionally; one of them kept glancing off to his left, clearly concerned about whatever new attack may be taking place. Loki took another step forward, then another, and another. With each step he watched carefully for any reaction that could signal the Einherjar were aware of his presence. There was none.

With the next step he would commit to this; he would enter the observatory.

Thunder boomed through the sky and Loki took a shuddering breath. There were no clouds. Thunder meant only one thing. Moving nothing but his eyeballs he looked toward the Einherjar directly to his right. _His_ eyes were tracking something through the sky, from east to west. They never lingered in Loki's vicinity. He released his breath and stepped through the open entryway.

The air was warmer inside than out, suffused with magic. He hadn't noticed that before, but he'd been distracted at the time. Still, he was done dismissing things his senses reported to him. He gripped his stolen sword more tightly in his left hand – the right remained too weakened – and examined everything around him for signs of traps or triggers. He could detect none, but there was so much magic in the air, so much energy of different flavors, all mixing and blending and it was difficult to pull them apart into their own unique signatures. He had a bad feeling about this. He didn't ignore it, but he didn't obey it, either. He _wanted_ the tesseract. Badly. He slipped his right hand into his satchel. _This_ time, if something went wrong, he was prepared. He hoped.

He stepped closer to the tesseract. Through the spot where his mother had given him the red globe. He wondered if it had glowed at all in the hours he'd been back on Asgard; he'd never seen it do so since the moment she gave it to him. To the spot where he'd stood and placed his hand over the tesseract, where he'd requested to go to Norway just to taunt Thor. He wondered if Thor had accepted that he was now an only child and forgotten him. If he hadn't yet, Thor would finally leave his fantasies of brotherhood behind for good once he found out where Loki had spent the last two months.

He reached forward with his aching right arm, felt the slight increase in heat of the glowing cube with its swirling blue clouds. It was beautiful, but…

But it wasn't the tesseract.

He knew it in the instant before he heard two notes from a horn. He didn't need any enchantment to tell him where it came from; he turned around and saw it on the lips of the Einherjar standing in the entryway.

The guard let the horn fall, hanging from its leather strap, and advanced. Two more had fallen in behind him and entered. Two more fell in behind them. As they entered they spread into a grid, more and more of them, filling the room and slowly pressing forward. He wouldn't be able to slip through them to get through the entrance, not without taking out a dozen highly-trained Einherjar first. With impaired magic and a minimally-functional right arm.

The game was over. Asgard was over. He slid his hand back into the satchel, felt past the empty wrapper, found the RF switch linked to the transmitter, and again flipped it on.

Nothing happened.

Loki cursed under his breath. The Einherjar couldn't hear it anyway. Except they did.

Loki's eyes widened as soon as theirs did. Every gold-helmeted head was turned his way. He checked himself. He was still invisible, but his sound dampening had become unstable. He reinforced it, then quickly changed his position, edging toward the wall as the Einherjar advanced on him, changing their angle of approach to take his location into account.

He pulled his hand from the satchel and cringed as he forced his right arm high enough to reach for the window opening. His hand met spongy resistance. Loki smiled darkly; he would laugh at the irony of it if there were not twelve swords raised in his direction and coming closer, if there were not shouts outside the structure, also approaching. Brokk had imprisoned him again. Not Brokk directly. That was highly unlikely, and there were no enchanted candles. This was Maeva's work. He'd learned it from Brokk, and taught it to Maeva when they were on good terms, and Maeva had adapted it to her own style. She didn't use candles.

There was no roof, but it would be sealed as well. Still, as always, he would try. Mistakes happened; unexpected weaknesses could be exploited. He propelled himself silently upward, and rather than even attempting to lift his right arm he extended his left, letting the sword probe the opening above him. He got the same, expected, result. He scanned the invisible line of the barrier but could find no indication of any imperfection in it. Maeva was talented – probably the best in Asgard, other than him.

Something bumped his left ankle, and as he looked down and instinctively lowered his sword back into position to strike, a fist shot up, grabbed it, and yanked. Loki brought his sword down toward the outstretched arm, but he was off-balance and managed only a cut across the arm. It was enough to make the hand momentarily loosen; Loki wrenched his ankle away and spun to his right, maintaining his elevation, but away from his boxed-in position by the wall. A sword struck his right calf, and it stung as Loki twisted away from that, too. Another sword moved to cut against his left leg, but he beat it, forcing the sword away but leaving himself open to another attack. He began to push himself higher, to try to get above the swords, to an area where he was freer to maneuver, but another hand found his ankle. The angle was awkward, but Loki leaned down and thrust his sword down through the upper chest of the Einherjar who now had hold of him, then flicked out the fingers of his right hand. A horn was heard from the direction of the palace, and the voices that had grown from a steady murmur to the occasional shout fell silent.

"Mind your own task!" one of them, probably their leader, barked. The half of the guards who'd been distracted and turned refocused their attention on fixing Loki's location and grabbing him or stabbing him.

Loki sliced deeply into the shoulder of the nearest man. He was just wrenching the sword out again when the breath rushed out of him and he realized the guards weren't the only ones who'd been successfully distracted for a moment. He leaned forward again, this time to try to pull himself off of the sword in his back.

The room went unnaturally bright, and his stomach turned. He grimaced, certain he was going to be sick at an incredibly inopportune time.

* * *

/

_First an answer to a question from jaquelinelittle. "[I]f that apprentice healer can remove Brokk's spell which Loki can't, they could try the same with Odin's curse..."? I kind of took the answer to this for granted in my own head, but it probably won't be made explicit so it deserves an answer as it's key to the plot. The idea is that these are two very different types of magic. Brokk's is not person-specific, and not nearly as strong compared to what Odin applied to Loki, which was very strong and very much person-specific. The more general kind of magic is much more easily removed than the kind that was created For You And You Alone. I hope that makes sense, and thanks for asking! I imagine others may have wondered the same. Perhaps in a subsequent revision I'll add a phrase or two to clarify that._

_Second the continued "thank you's" - I do so love to hear from you, love chatting about all these characters. I appreciate each and every reader and reviewer. I-heart-you. ;-) You may not believe me (!) but we're closer to the end than the beginning now...and I wrote the last line of this story a few days ago. Not that it's in the next chapter. There are still many to go. But it just came to me and made me happy. Of course I may change it, who knows! Ha!  
_

_As for the next chapter...CHAPTER FIFTY, wow!...no teasers this time, except by request, to avoid spoiler-y-ness. Otherwise you get only this tiny excerpt:_

"My queen, we must return to the palace immediately. There's been an attack at the observatory."

Frigga froze for just a second – the observatory, the temporary one, was a stone's throw from here – then nodded and headed for the door.


	51. (50) Perception

**Beneath**

**Chapter Fifty – Perception**

The light was instantly exchanged for darkness. Loki was blacking out.

He struggled against it, feeling dizzy. By the time he realized that the pinpricks of red and white light he was seeing were not imagined, and were in fact familiar, that he was not blacking out, gravity was hitting hard and he was stumbling, collapsing to his knees. He dropped the sword and reached out with his left hand to lean hard against the jamesway, to brace himself from pitching forward and planting his face into Pathfinder.

The cold was a shock and stole his breath away, but for the moment, at least, he hadn't the strength to move.

/

* * *

/

Jane sat up, startled by a noise behind the jamesway. She'd been staring off into space for what must have been the hundredth time, trying to decide what she was going to do about Loki's disappearance. At some point – and that point had to be soon – indecision was going to have to give way to action. The longer this went on, the worse it would be.

The noise sounded like it had come from behind back, where Pathfinder was set up. It reminded her she still needed to shut it down and bring it in, before someone discovered it. _No time like the present_.

She got her outer gear on and stepped outside. She could see the station, and the logistics and vehicle maintenance facilities, the other little buildings and cargo dumps between here and the station, and far off in the distance to the left, the red lights from the Dark Sector facilities. The flags were limp and still. No wind. Jane bit her lip. She had assumed the noise was caused by a gust of wind rattling something loose on the jamesway's exterior. She was suddenly afraid someone had stumbled across Pathfinder. It was just a piece of equipment, really; there was no way you could simply look at it and know what it did. But explaining why it was half-hidden behind one of the unoccupied jamesways instead of up on top of the Dark Sector Lab with her other equipment…that could prove more difficult.

_Easier…somehow. Less cluttered. Better air quality. Better harmonics. _More completely made-up and stupid-sounding excuses came to mind before one that might actually sound plausible. _Less interference from all the other electronics._ Jane nodded, happy with that one, and continued down the side of the building. Anger quickly replaced the happiness: anger at Loki for putting her in the position of having to come up with lies. She'd never lied about her work before, even when it resulted in rejection after rejection from journals and conferences, even when it cost her a post-doc at the University of Chicago.

She stopped just before rounding the corridor, as another possibility occurred to her. _Loki_. She wondered if he could have come back after all. But why would he come back now? It had been two full days already. Maybe time flowed differently on Asgard? Maybe for him it had only been an hour? Jane didn't think that likely; she'd seen no evidence for it. Of course, she supposed she'd seen no evidence firmly against it, either. Wormholes crossed space-_time_. And it wasn't even clear what exactly Yggdrasil was, a type of wormhole or something else entirely. Maybe there was some kind of weird time dilation effect. But no, the probe that had reached Asgard had shown no sign of being there for any longer or shorter time than had passed on Earth. _You're procrastinating, Jane. Again._

She inched forward, then craned her neck and peered around the corner of the building. No one was there.

/

* * *

/

Loki knew he couldn't stay out here indefinitely. His entire body had already gone numb. He pushed up and got his right foot underneath him. The familiar ache from the sudden pressure on his foot didn't come. He gave a small laugh that came from somewhere in his chest and didn't quite make it through his lips, which he realized were freezing together. He lowered his jaw and forcefully pulled them apart.

Pushing a little against the jamesway for support as though he were an old man, he got his other foot under him and tried to straighten up, but he couldn't pull away from the jamesway. He turned to look at his hand, then tried to move it again, unsuccessfully. His bare hand rested against metal; his flesh had frozen to it. He had a brief flashback to his short visits to Jotunheim; he couldn't recall ever seeing anything made of metal there.

Bent awkwardly at the waist, Loki excited the appropriate particles around his hand and the metal until he was able to pull his hand away without leaving a layer of skin behind and giving himself yet another injury to heal.

/

* * *

/

Jane stared at the back wall of the jamesway. Twice she'd heard something rattle there. But there was no wind. And there were no animals here. She frowned, feeling a bit creeped out, and continued to inch forward – one step, two. She heard a sharp gasp. It wasn't her. The scream that immediately followed was hers.

She didn't really scream, not at first – it was really more of a startled yelp. The second time was a scream.

Where before there'd been nothing but cold dry Antarctic air between her and Pathfinder, now Loki stood, blood spatters on his face, black hair mussed and unruly, black leather satchel around his neck, black tunic and black leather pants and boots with bits of armor here and there and a few dark stains Jane quickly realized were probably also blood. Before she could really process any of it he was on the move, directly toward her. Her first instinct was fear, and she started stepping backward. Her heel soon caught on a ridge in the ice and she lost her balance; Loki grabbed for her arm and steadied her. She tried to pull away from him but he didn't let go and she didn't stand a chance.

"Jane, calm down. I didn't mean to startle you."

_Startle._ "Startle" was someone calling out to you when you were engrossed in a book. "Startle" was not someone popping out of the thin air you were just staring at, and looking like some lunatic ax murderer.

Still, she calmed down. A little. Her heart was still racing. Of all the things running through her mind simultaneously, she blurted out, "You've got blood on you."

He ran a hand over his face and looked at his palm. "It's not mine."

Jane's shoulders slumped a little in relief, then her eyes went wide. That meant it was someone else's. "What did you do?" she asked in a low voice, full of trepidation. He'd let go of her arm; she took another step away.

Loki's expression – open, relaxed, even concerned, perhaps – immediately changed, eyes narrowing, lips thinning. He radiated fury, but he didn't immediately speak. Jane took another step back; she was no longer hidden behind the jamesway.

"I'm going back to the station," he announced calmly, and started to turn around, back toward Pathfinder.

"No, wait, you can't."

"What do you… Have you told SHIELD that I'm here?"

"No! No," she repeated more quietly, glancing down the length of the jamesway and retracing her steps so she was again concealed from casual view. "Not yet. I couldn't figure out what to tell people _here._ It was awful. But you can't go in there like that. You've got blood on your face and your shirt and you…you don't look…" The word "sane" came to mind, but Jane figured it might not be wise to say it.

Loki put his hands together and rapidly drew them apart – Jane noticed his grimace as he did so – and a mirror perhaps eight-by-ten inches appeared there. He grasped it in his left hand and held it up. Jane stared but didn't comment, and only gaped for a second or two.

"I've got a water bottle in the jamesway. You can, uh, you can get cleaned up in there. And if you're going in the station, you're going to have to do something about those clothes. And aren't you cold?" she tacked on at the end, noticing his bare hands and head and thin shirt with a layer of what appeared to be light chain mail over much of his chest.

He shot her a look that was as plain as any words, _"Of course I'm cold, genius."_ Then the mirror disappeared between his hands and he turned around and Jane's jaw dropped, for more than just a second or two this time. "You…you…" she finally stammered out, but then he was bending down and picking up something she hadn't noticed before. The moon still provided some light, but it was dark, especially back here where there were no red lights. When he stood, a sword – a _sword_ – was in his left hand.

Her eyes went to saucers and now she was really stepping away. Loki's eyes were not on her, though; he stepped to the side as he approached and went right past her. She turned but stayed put for a moment, confirming she hadn't imagined what she'd seen before. "Um…Loki…" But he was already nearly to the door. She followed, hurrying as fast as she could in the bunny boots that didn't have the greatest traction in the world. The door was just closing when she got to it; she pushed it wider open and went inside.

He had stopped by the table where her laptop was still up and running, his back still to her. Which was really unfortunate. She jumped when the door closed behind her. "Loki, there's something sticking out of your back."

/

* * *

/

Loki stood up straighter at the sound of her voice. His skin felt prickly, sensation returning to it inside the jamesway. He was only slowly becoming aware of all the aches and pains his body now carried. _"There's something sticking out of your back."_ As soon as she'd said it, he felt something burning in his upper back. He strained to look over his shoulder, then strained further, and then he saw it – the sword he'd been run through with. Only he clearly hadn't managed to get off it before Pathfinder kicked in and brought him back, and somewhere on Asgard an Einherjar was running around with a sword whose blade was severed in half.

"Take it out," he said, facing away from her again.

"Uhhhh…"

"Take it out. It's not that difficult. Just don't touch the edges. Not if you prefer having ten fingers." The metal and crafting were Asgardian; even the blunted ceremonial version of these swords could probably deprive her of a limb.

"But, you, uh, isn't it-"

"Jane. Can we discuss it in glorious minutia afterward? Put your fingers over the flat of the blade, from the end, not the edge, and pull it straight out, preferably along the angle of entry."

"Okay, fine, I'll try, just…try to stay still."

"Believe me, I'm not moving." He heard her step closer and held his breath so there would be no movement of his torso at all. His eyes closed, and he felt himself grow strangely relaxed. He'd seen Jane work on small things like the circuit boards; she had steady hands. There was a certain relief in seeing her, even if she remained her same argumentative self instead of simply doing what she was told. She was the one person who knew who he was, at least in part, but was neither going to arrest him nor stab him nor trap him in a cage of magic. The relief had even crossed briefly and irrationally into something quite close to joy. _That _had gone away the second she'd opened her mouth to accuse _him_ of being responsible for the marks of violence he bore.

It stung terribly when she pulled the remains of the blade out, slowly and carefully when he wished she would have gone quicker and gotten it over with.

"There's…there's a lot of blood," she said; Loki heard the blade clatter to the floor.

He vanished the sword still in his hand and turned around to find Jane breathing shallowly and looking like she might pass out, or worse, vomit all over him. _Did you know your woman cannot take the sight of blood, Thor? She would never make it in Asgard._ He grasped her wrist in his right hand and led her to one of the chairs by the computer, where he pressed at her shoulder until she sat.

A dripping sound came from behind him; he turned and saw there was indeed a lot of blood. It had soaked the back of his tunic and was dripping to the floor. He wasn't concerned – he would be able to heal this wound. But he _was_ – though he would never admit it to her – feeling slightly faint himself. He'd been stabbed and cut multiple times over the last two days and several of the wounds had bled copiously. He sank down into the chair next to Jane and it was much like old times, were Jane not sitting with her head between her knees in an effort to avoid getting sick and were he not dripping blood all over the floor. Still, it was the most comfortable he'd been since he left here.

Loki set the RF switch down on the small table, then removed the transmitter and structural field generator from his wrists, and set them down beside the switch. He gingerly took the satchel from around his neck and under his injured arm, then sent his armor away. He began to work his tunic off next, not permitting the groans he wanted to make when it pulled free of the still unhealed wound on his shoulder, because Jane was here. He dropped it to the floor, the back half of it a sopping mess with a new hole in it. "Your water bottle?"

"Backpack," Jane said, her voice muffled by her familiar black Carhartts.

He looked around and found it underneath the table, then retrieved the water and got to work cleaning the stab wound in his upper back, using a bit of magic to assist. The Einherjar had thrust his sword into the air, not knowing what he would strike – a sword in the back was considered extremely dishonorable – and barely missed his spine. It wasn't easy, healing this particular wound. He couldn't see it, didn't feel like retrieving the mirror again and trying to find just the right angle, and he couldn't reach it with his fingers. His right arm still couldn't move enough to dream of stretching that far, and his left arm couldn't get there, as it was just to the right of his spine. Still, after several minutes of intense concentration, he'd managed to get the tissues inside to heal, and in another minute or two the skin had knit back together, flawlessly, he hoped.

When he opened his eyes – he hadn't realized he'd closed them again – he found Jane staring at him. _Have you never seen a man's chest before?_ he wanted to ask. But she wasn't looking at him like that. She was staring at the wound on his shoulder, the one caused by Brokk's enchanted dagger. It was red and inflamed, weeping something that wasn't quite blood, and, Loki had to acknowledge, it looked rather disgusting. The back of his shoulder, where the dagger had gone clean through, probably looked no different. Loki poured some water over that wound, too, and Jane looked away. He used the last of the water to clean the Aesir blood from his face.

/

* * *

/

Frigga hurried in through the private west entrance to the Healing Room, its name taken from the long-forgotten days when it was in fact a single room, run by a single healer…or so the story went. She was accompanied by two Einherjar, including new Chief Palace Einherjar Huskol, who had tried hard to dissuade her from coming here, where no added protections were in place. But Jolgeir, who had served Asgard and her family personally so well through the years, and who had now sacrificed so much, had asked for her by name. She would have gone to him no matter the risk.

Huskol entered Jolgeir's room first, ensuring no one was inside waiting to ambush the queen, then signaled for her to follow, while the second Einherjar remained outside to guard the entrance.

"How do you fare, Jolgeir?" she asked as she approached his bed. He was sitting up, his back against the bed's solid wood headboard, wearing a tunic with the sleeves cut to the short remaining length of his arms, a bright red spot on the side of his forehead.

"Well, Your Majesty, thank you for asking. Forgive me that…that I do not salute you."

Frigga sighed. "You do salute me, Jolgeir. Everyone who meets you will know you forever salute Asgard's throne."

"You do me too much honor," he said with a nod, his eyes trained in her direction. "Your Majesty…I need to speak with you alone."

"Absolutely not," Huskol interjected immediately.

"Huskol, a few days ago I was your superior, and there is no one else in this room besides me, and I cannot even get out of bed without falling on my face. I believe the queen is safe, or at least she will be no less safe with you waiting outside."

"And were you in my place, would you respond any differently in a time of war, days after the palace itself was attacked?"

"No, I would not," Jolgeir admitted with a chuckle.

"Enough. Huskol, I am _still_ your superior. Wait outside. You've done your duty well."

Huskol started to protest, but thought better of it and brought his fist to his heart, then stepped outside to join the other guard.

"We are alone," Frigga said as soon as the door closed. "I understand you were the one who sent out the warning about the Felingard Forest."

"I was. But that's not what I wished to speak with you about. Not directly, anyway. Your Majesty…I don't know what to think of this exactly…but…come closer, please…"

Frigga's eyebrows drew together in puzzlement, but she did as Jolgeir asked, stepping nearer to the head of the bed, and leaning in close to Jolgeir.

His voice dropped to a whisper. "Loki was here."

Frigga drew back as though struck. "What? What do you mean, 'here'?" He couldn't possibly be here. If he had made use of the gem and the tonic, she would have known about it. The tesseract had sent him to Midgard, and Heimdall had confirmed he'd made it safely there, although he'd lost sight of him soon after.

"It was he who told me about the forest, that we were vulnerable there," he said, his voice returning to normal, though still quiet.

Frigga watched him closely. He'd been brutally injured in the throne room explosion, unconscious for days, and he'd clearly taken another very recent blow to the head. "And how was he, Jolgeir?" she asked in the end with a kind, sad smile. She wanted to take his hand, to offer comfort that way, but she settled for a gentle hand on his shoulder. She was startled when he jerked his body away from her touch.

"I did not imagine it, my queen. I'm telling you, he was here. He claimed to be a healer, but he asked about you. He was afraid you'd been injured in the explosion. The way he asked…and his voice when I told him you were nowhere near it…I knew it was him. I tried to get him to stay longer, but he realized I'd figured out who he was. And it's just as he said when he realized it: I'm good at seeing what can't be seen. It's what I'm trained for. Then right before he left he warned me about the Felingard Forest. Ask Hogun. He told me he saw a blond, bearded man he didn't know but who nevertheless looked familiar leaving this wing as Hogun was entering it. I didn't tell him who it really was. I've told no one but you."

Frigga nodded slowly, forgetting that Jolgeir probably couldn't see it, as she tried to work through everything he'd told her. "All right…I believe you. I'm sorry I didn't before. But…I don't understand how it's possible that he could be here. And _why_ would he come here? And how would he know where another realm was going to attack? It's the Fire Giants this time. They're burning the Felingard Forest."

"And the Einherjar encampment there?" Jolgeir asked, his voice tight.

"Destroyed. I don't know what the casualties are, but they at least had some advance warning of danger." _Thanks to Loki? But how did he know?_ The question would not stop repeating itself, and much as Frigga wanted to think the best of Loki, he had done terrible, truly terrible things in the last year, and the question kept repeating at least in part because she was afraid to try to answer it.

"I don't know how or why he came here, or how he got his information," Jolgeir said after a moment. "But I do know he didn't come here intending to give me that warning. I don't think he even knew I was in here. Looking back on it, I think he was surprised. He asked what happened to me."

"Did he know about the explosion?"

"Yes, I believe so. He didn't seem surprised when I told him that's how I was injured. And he didn't ask any questions about the explosion itself. Only about your safety."

"_Loki wouldn't do this, Thor." _She'd been certain he couldn't be involved in any of this. She _was_ certain. Mostly certain. She _wanted _to be certain. She longed to be certain. But he was so consumed with hatred. So full of rage. Her baby boy. Her sweet, sensitive, wide-eyed, worrying, contemplative, compassionate little boy had tried to obliterate an entire realm, an entire race, in something Thor had described as little short of a fit of madness. He'd killed wantonly on Midgard, the realm he knew Asgard had long protected from outside interference, the realm he knew Thor now had a special affection for, and tried to bring it to its knees, to proclaim himself its ruler. The Loki she knew would never conceive of such things. Was he no longer the Loki she knew at all? _Is my Loki lost to me?_ She swiped at a tear that had escaped and slipped down her cheek.

_Unacceptable. That is unacceptable,_ she told herself, reigning in her emotions. There were other explanations, of course there were. Whatever he knew, however he knew it, he had _told_ them. He'd told Jolgeir, and he would know that Jolgeir wouldn't keep such information to himself. He didn't have to say anything. If he had truly turned on Asgard he would have kept that warning to himself. Perhaps Loki was out there somewhere, behind the scenes, gathering information on Asgard's foes, then delivering it in secret. Asgard's secret protector. But why in secret? And if he knew where Asgard was going to be attacked, why hadn't he warned them earlier? Why hadn't he warned them about the throne room? If he'd somehow gotten word to them about that, Jolgeir wouldn't be missing two limbs and his eyesight, Hogun wouldn't be relying on canes to get around because of his shattered legs, and four people – at a bare minimum – wouldn't be dead.

It seemed overly optimistic – unrealistic, if she were completely honest with herself – to consider him Asgard's secret protector. And Jolgeir had already said he was certain Loki hadn't come here with the intention of providing this warning. Loki had once greatly looked up to him, adored him even, as a child, after Jolgeir rescued him from a traumatic incident at a lake. For a while after, Loki had declared to anyone who would listen that he would be an Einherjar when he grew up.

"_Loki…you can't be an Einherjar. You're a prince. Princes do not become guards," Odin explained kindly but firmly as they sat at their dinner table, just the four of them._

_Frigga watched Loki – his rapidly blinking eyes, his trembling chin – and breathed in deeply. She knew what was coming._

"_But…but I want to be an Einherjar."_

"_I'm sorry, Son. That isn't your future. Your destiny lies elsewhere."_

_She shifted her gaze from Loki to Odin, trying to catch his eye, but his attention was back on his plate, where he was cutting into a piece of meat._

"_I don't want elsewhere. I don't want to be a prince. I want to be an Einherjar," Loki said quietly, the tears already starting to fall._

"_Stop this right now, Loki, and listen to me. You will _command_ Einherjar when you're grown. But you will not _be_ one, do you understand?"_

_Loki's face crumpled like an apple well past its time and sobbing quickly followed; he squirmed down from his chair and was half-way to Frigga before she rose from her own chair and picked him up, shooting a look at Odin, who finally met her eyes with a frown. Though she and Odin had both vowed never to lie to their children again, beyond what they were already committed to, her resolve crumpled like Loki's face when confronted with such sheer heartbreak. "If you really want to become an Einherjar, we can make an exception to the rules, Loki. It's an honorable pursuit," she said, settling down with Loki on her lap._

"_You can be First Einherjar and protect me when I'm king," Thor put in._

"_Frigga," Odin said in a warning tone._

_Which she ignored._

"_Can I, Mother?" Loki asked, sniffling. His eyes were reddened and wet and full of innocent hope and trust._

"_Of course you can, darling. If that's what you want." _"He's five,"_ she mouthed to Odin, who sighed and held his tongue._

Loki had of course grown out of that particular phase, and he'd grown apart from Jolgeir centuries ago, but perhaps he'd looked upon Jolgeir's state now and felt compassion. Perhaps he knew more about the plot against Asgard and felt guilt. Surely, surely, he could not be _involved_ in the plot.

A knock came at the door, pulling Frigga from her memories and worries.

Huskol stepped in before she – or Jolgeir, who had remained respectfully quiet – could give permission. "My queen, we must return to the palace immediately. There's been an attack at the observatory."

Frigga froze for just a second – the observatory, the temporary one, was a stone's throw from here – then nodded and headed for the door.

"Your Majesty, please, just one more thing," Jolgeir said.

"Yes? What is it?" she said, pausing and turning back to the former Chief Palace Einherjar.

"I was advised that you must speak with a palace servant named Vigdis. Nothing else was said on this."

_Vigdis…_ The name was familiar but she couldn't place it. "Thank you, Jolgeir. All of Asgard thanks you," she said before Huskol hurried her out the door.

/

* * *

/

"I don't know how you're going to explain…this," Jane said once she finally sat up again, waving a hand in his general direction and studiously avoiding looking at the nauseating stab wound on his right shoulder, "but you've got to get to the doctor." She'd never seen anything like this before. Scrapes, small cuts, minor burns, those she was used to tending. Never so much blood, or holes where there weren't supposed to be any. She didn't remember the car accident that claimed her parents' lives and injured her, and by the time she'd woken up in the hospital she'd been tidy and clean, no sign of what had happened.

Loki gave a small laugh. "Your doctors' methods are barbaric."

Jane frowned. His sense of superiority was truly grating. A sudden memory of Thor's dismissive and clearly unappreciative _"They will suffice,"_ when she'd provided him with clothes that fit, albeit a bit tightly, came to mind. "Call it whatever you want, but their methods work pretty well for…stabbings. If you don't get those punctures sterilized and stitched up they could get infected. And that much blood loss can't be good even for Aesir."

His face hardened at the naming of the thing that had been snatched away from him. The thing she so casually – and erroneously – ascribed to him; he couldn't recall her even using the word before. Then he smiled. "You're right, Jane, I'll never be able to explain this to the station's doctor. But _you_ are a doctor, too, are you not?"

"Not that kind of doctor," she said, paling. "Really, really, _really _not that kind of doctor."

"You'll do fine," Loki said with his warmest, most reassuring smile.

"No, I can't- I don't know how to do that stuff," Jane said.

"Does this building have one of those first aid kits?" Loki asked.

Jane nodded. "I remember seeing one when we first set up shop in here."

"Go get it."

Jane nodded again and got up; she soon found the kit in a box of emergency supplies near the door. There wasn't much in the kit itself, she realized. Some bandages of various sizes, tape, gauze, an antibacterial topical cream, aloe vera, a liquid antiseptic, some aspirin. The other items in the box included a few bottles of water, some MREs that Jane thought might be relics from the days when the US Navy ran the station, a flashlight, batteries, a few of those heat sticks you could snap and have instant warmth from through a chemical reaction inside them, and some extra ECW gear, the smaller pieces like gloves, gloveliners, socks, neck gaiters, and balaclavas.

When she got back to the table with the kit, Loki was holding something thin and shiny between his thumb and index finger. "What's that?" she asked, afraid she knew exactly what it was.

"I thought you were a doctor. It's a needle. You said my wounds needed to be stitched up. This one," he said, pointing with the needle toward his shoulder, "went straight through, so you'll have to stitch it in the front and the back, along with the one you pulled the blade out of. It isn't complicated. You simply slip the needle through the skin on one side, then the other, then pull it tightly together with the thread, then you put-"

"All right, all right, I'll do it. I'll try. I get the concept. Just…just shut up, okay?" She gripped the edge of the table with one hand and closed her eyes and pressed her face into the other. "Just give me a minute. And then…we'll do it on the bed."

Loki bit his upper lip to hold back a snicker. If only Heimdall could have overheard _that_ and passed it along to Thor. Her face was mostly hidden so his eyes lingered on her hair, down loose over her shoulders. He knew her habits; he knew that meant she'd recently washed it, probably this morning, given how soft and silky it looked. Loki squeezed his eyes shut tightly for a moment. _Soft and silky?_ It didn't look soft and silky. It looked brown and straight. He had no idea how soft or silky it might or might not be. _It must be, though._ And he began to feel something _else_ he hadn't felt in a long time…and it wasn't guilt.

He sat up straighter and ran a hand through his own hair, trying to smooth it back into position. He didn't have time for this. And it was revolting. An image of her from the sunset dinner, when she'd had on that short black dress that nicely displayed her legs came to mind unbidden. _That isn't helping,_ he told himself. _What is wrong with me?_ He made himself instead picture her looking up at him in fear right after he'd choked her. That helped somewhat. Then he made himself picture her in Puente Antiguo, running around trying to get people out of the Destroyer's way, then crouching over the shell that had been Thor, whimpering over him, probably wetting his face with her tears, infecting him with more weakness with every passing second. _That_ helped. _Poison,_ he told himself. _She is poison. I have to get out of here. I have to think…_

"Get on the bed," she ordered.

"What?" Loki asked.

"Get on the bed. If we're going to do this, we better do it now, before I lose my nerve."

Loki rolled his neck around until he felt and heard a gratifying pop. He swallowed. It took a distressingly long time before he remembered what he'd told her before, and he couldn't bring himself to continue the charade. The needle disappeared. "I value my life too greatly to let you near me with a needle and thread, _Doctor_ Foster. This is skin, not cloth. I can heal my own wounds much more efficiently. Look at my back, see? No sign I was ever injured."

Jane glared at him, then stepped around behind him. She saw where the knife or sword or whatever it was had come out the other side of his shoulder and it made her stomach rebellious again, but the place where she'd pulled a broken-off blade from his back was healed, bits of dark drying blood on his back the only sign of it. She got what he meant then about Earth's doctors being barbaric; she supposed to him it would seem that way. _Thank God. What am I doing playacting at being a doctor, anyway, and for Loki-you-crave-subjugation?_ He was just supposed to come back and tell her he was all right then go back to his own stupid realm, not show up two days late, full of holes and asking her to stitch them up. Making fun of her, apparently.

"Creep," she muttered under her breath, then gave a final sigh of relief that she wasn't going to have to do that. She wasn't sure she could have made it through without passing out. "So what about this other one, why haven't you healed it?" she asked, lightly touching one fingertip to his shoulder, away from the wound.

"That one is magic-resistant," he said, twisting away from her. "I can help it along somewhat now, but it will have to heal on its own."

"Magic-resistant? What, like antibiotic-resistant?"

"I have no idea what that is, but if it will satisfy your curiosity and cease your questions, then yes, it's exactly like antibiotic-resistant."

"Well, it still looks gross. It still looks like it's getting infected." She reached back into the first aid kit and took out the blue bottle of antiseptic and some gauze.

"What is that?" Loki asked, watching as she soaked the gauze pads in a clear liquid with a sharp scent.

Jane explained, then handed him the damp gauze. "Um, here. You do it."

He took the gauze in his left hand and pressed it over the wound, then immediately took it off as he sucked in a sharp breath. "You might have mentioned that it stings."

"It's supposed to sting. That's how you know it's working. I thought you were smart enough to know that."

Loki scowled and pressed the gauze back to the wound. Jane prepared more gauze and did the same to the one on the back of his shoulder, dabbing gently at it – very gently, hoping to avoid a violent outburst – and tried not to think about what she could feel underneath her fingers through the gauze, lest she get sick. She bandaged and taped the back, then the front. "What's that? A ruby?" she asked, pointing toward the large round stone hanging around his neck from a chain so fine she could barely see it, and she couldn't imagine how it supported the weight of the gem. "It's the biggest ruby I've ever seen."

"It's not a ruby. It's- It's not your concern."

"No?"

"No," Loki said with a smile.

"What are you doing here, Loki?" Jane said, stepping back and crossing her arms over her chest. "Why aren't you getting yourself treated by your non-barbaric Asgardian doctors with their magic rocks? What happened to you on Asgard? What's going on there?" She stopped only when a wave of guilt struck, because she'd known there was a risk of danger in Asgard, and she hadn't conveyed the entirety of it, because she'd wanted him to leave.

"That's not your concern, either."

"Is that going to be your answer to everything I ask?"

"Probably."

"We'll see about that. So…are you back? You're staying? Because that wasn't the plan. It kind of seems like this isn't a 'hey, Jane, Pathfinder works, our modifications work, everything's great, Thor says hi, I'm going back home now' visit. What happened to parties and speeches and whatever you said was going to happen when you went back? What happened to that little test your father supposedly constructed, for you to get back to Asgard without magic? And don't tell me it's not my concern because it _is _my concern, and you know it."

"Yes, well, I may not have been entirely honest about a few things."

"No kidding. Really?" Jane deadpanned. She didn't press it though; she hadn't been entirely honest about a few things, either.

"I'm back. For a little while. Nothing for you to worry about. I just need to figure a few things out, then I'll leave again."

"How long is a little while? We had a deal, Loki. You can't just stay here. And I can't just keep this secret forever."

"I'll keep to myself. I don't need you anymore, Jane. Go back to what you were working on before Pathfinder. You can forget you ever knew me, and I shall do likewise," Loki said, standing, and bracing himself against the table to do it when he realized it would require more effort than expected.

Jane shook her head and her gaze drifted downward. She wished she hadn't. "Your leg is bleeding, too."

Loki looked down and found the injury he'd forgotten about. "It's ruined," he said, bending over and inspecting the leather, sliced clean through in a nearly vertical line from ankle almost to the top of the boot. His favorite pair of boots.

"What, is that magic-resistant, too?"

He rolled his eyes. "No."

"Then why can't you just fix your stupid boots if you're so upset about it?"

"I'm not 'so upset' about it," Loki said, though he was. It wasn't like he had his second- or third-favorite pair with him, or any other pair at all. "But this isn't living flesh. I can't just fix it."

"I would think fixing boots would be easier than fixing a stab wound."

"If you cut yourself, does your skin not knit back together, eventually, even without a healer's treatment? And does the same thing happen if you cut your clothing?"

Loki seemed to expect an answer to that question designed to make her feel stupid, because _obviously_ clothing didn't knit itself back together again, but Jane refused, clenching her jaw a little tighter. How was _she_ supposed to know how magic worked?

"Flesh wants to heal. It's created with the ability to heal. Magic only helps it do better what it's already doing. I could mend the boot…but it'll never truly be the same. I'm going back to the station," he said, retrieving his suitcase. "I'll heal my leg in my room." He certainly couldn't do it here. He wasn't worried about the actual cut, which wasn't too bad; it was the condition of his foot he wanted to make sure Jane didn't see.

"What?" Jane asked when he stopped moving and stared at the suitcase he'd pulled out of thin air and opened up on the floor.

"No more tunics." He closed the suitcase and got rid of it, then retrieved Big Red instead and put it on directly over his bare chest.

Jane stared at him. "You stole Big Red?"

"I was _issued_ Big Red in Christchurch, just as you were," he answered.

"Yeah, but you took it with you, to Asgard, and you weren't planning on- Loki, wait."

"What?" He had retrieved his satchel from the table along with the sword tip from the floor, and was almost to the door.

"You've got…grass or something on the bottom of your boots."

"And?" he asked, quickly growing exasperated.

"You aren't supposed to track foreign plant matter here. And they mean from New Zealand. You're tracking plant matter around from another _planet_."

Loki shook his head, rolled his eyes again, and headed out into the Antarctic winter. It was almost as though he'd never left. Almost.

* * *

/

_Looking back_

_My personal Loki obsession began in June, 2012. The first document in planning this story was created on June 27. The first words of this story were written on June 29. The first chapter (the prologue) of this story was posted on July 6, when a few chapters were already written. The longest-running readers I know of (via reviews) are Shaida01 (July 7), Megumisakura (July 8) and, tied, redrascal1 and DreamFlight (July 17). Thanks for sticking with it all this time, wow! The first review was from a Guest (July 6). Number of hours I slept in July 2012...you don't want to know. Neither do I. It would be very, very low. Genuinely, truly, YOU are a big part of how I've been able to keep this going._

_Would you please drop me a line on this chapter? I'm kind of celebrating the Chapter 50 milestone. Whether you've been reading since July 2012 or yesterday (if you're a speed reader who doesn't require sleep). Although of course I always love and appreciate your reviews, I'll specifically request them just once more...when we reach The End! It's approaching...but there's a lot left to happen between now and then._

_And now some previews! In the next chapter, Vigdis is questioned and Frigga struggles to keep it together; the two battles rage on and we check in with one of them; Jane's on edge and there's a phone call, a moment of embarrassment, a confrontation, and Loki running. (And you do know I occasionally attempt to misdirect you in these, right?)_

_Excerpt from Chapter 51:_

"Concerned? I'm _touched_, Jane, truly. It's heart-warming," [Loki] mocked, hoping she would get mad enough to turn her back and leave. He didn't want to deal with her at all today. Or ever.

"You know, I guess I was, for about half a second. And then you opened your mouth. _Your_ heart must be a block of ice," Jane said, standing her ground.

His fists clenched at his side, resting on the sheet over the mattress. "Get out."


	52. (51) Determination

_Thanks for celebrating 50 chapters with me! We're sort of on the cusp of the final phase now. It was lovely to hear from so many of you, long-time readers and new readers alike. Wanted to share a quick word with "liz04" and other potentially nervous non-native English speakers - I used to teach ESL and have foreign language experience myself, so please don't ever feel bad about imperfect English. If you have actually read this far in this story...your English is pretty darn good, my friend. It's up to you if want to review or not, but please don't let language concerns stop you. Big smiles to liz and to you all! And now...onward!_

_/_

* * *

**Beneath**

**Chapter Fifty-One – Determination**

Frigga strode toward the Feasting Hall. She had no idea what to expect. Jolgeir had simply said that Loki told him they should speak with a palace servant named Vigdis.

An Einherjar had been tasked with identifying her – which had been easily and quickly done – and ensuring she waited alone in the Feasting Hall because someone wished to meet her. When the Einherjar informed the queen that Vigdis worked mostly in the kitchen and served at the high table, and had just been there begging for her job back after being dismissed the day before for spilling mead on Thor, Frigga instantly recalled the young woman with the long wavy light red hair. Thor had gone to apologize to her afterward. He'd been too late to stop her dismissal, apparently.

When she entered, Vigdis was standing rigidly beside the high table, near its center, in a pale yellow gown of straight, simple cut. Frigga sized her up quickly. She was young. Perhaps not even quite of age; the rules on such things were relaxed in wartime. Her hands, clasped together in front of her, were trembling slightly. She was afraid.

When Vigdis saw who was approaching, her eyes grew wide, then promptly fixed on her feet and bowed. Frigga ignored her and went directly to the chair no one dared sit in: Odin's chair. Frigga couldn't see the girl's face, but she could see the rapid rise and fall of her chest.

"You are Vigdis Aurikdottir?" Frigga asked in a tone that said she would not tolerate any lack of cooperation.

"I am, Your Majesty," the girl said, so softly her voice barely reached the end of the table.

Frigga watched her carefully. She had come prepared to be firm. Ruthless, even, should the woman not wish to reveal whatever it was she knew. It was not her nature, but it was a role she'd learned to play effectively when needed. "Come to me," she said, her voice silk over steel.

Vigdis kept her eyes down as she shuffled reluctantly toward her queen.

"Closer," Frigga urged, until the girl stood just a couple of feet from her chair. "Vigdis," Frigga began, noting the girl's utter timidity and quickly slipping into a more familiar role, that of a mother. "We both know there's something you need to tell me, my child."

Vigdis's blue eyes snapped up to meet Frigga's, as Frigga smiled gently. In a flurry of movement that saw the four Einherjar in the room racing forward with swords drawn, Vigdis threw herself at Frigga's feet, grasping and kissing them in between sobs and breathless muffled hysterical pleas for forgiveness.

Frigga lifted her hand to stop the guards, but they lingered close by rather than return to their earlier positions. _Who is this girl?_

_/_

* * *

_/_

Bragi, Odin's chief diplomatic advisor, renowned poet, and an aging veteran of both the Ice War and the Vanir-Aesir War who himself no longer fought, stood off to Frigga's left, while Vigdis sat relatively composed at the table reserved for the royal family, close friends and advisors, and important guests. Vigdis – who'd only achieved "relatively composed" following five minutes of crying at Frigga's feet that ended after Frigga finally allowed an Einherjar to pull her up, a pitiful and poorly considered attempt to flee, and a brief fainting spell that Frigga had initially believed was faked – had dissolved into sobs and prostrated herself on the floor again upon being told to sit at a table she'd only ever delivered food and drink to and cleaned.

Frigga glanced at Bragi; his face was red with anger and impatience. He'd softened over the years, tempered by the necessities of his position and by gaining three grandchildren in the last two centuries, but he'd already quietly suggested that they have the servant flogged to get her to talk. It was an accepted form of punishment for severe transgressions, but this girl's transgressions – and her behavior suggested there were serious ones – were not yet known. Besides, Vigdis appeared to be on the edge of a mental breakdown, and Frigga feared any harsh treatment would send her tumbling over, perhaps at the cost of forever losing whatever it was she knew about the alliance against Asgard.

"How old are you, Vigdis?" the queen asked.

"Nineteen," she answered, her voice rough from crying and devoid of everything but despair.

Frigga glanced over at Bragi and raised an eyebrow. He nodded; there would no further calls for flogging.

"Your parents are both dead. You live with your grandmother, yes?" The Einherjar who had identified Vigdis had learned this information and informed her.

Vigdis nodded, her eyes wide and fearful.

"Tell me everything, Vigdis. From the beginning. If you leave anything out, I'll know," she said, her voice gentle yet conveying her insistence on the full truth. All sorts of rumors of her "special sight" roamed the realms – she could see the future, she could see into souls, she could read minds, she could discern truth from falsehood. None of it was true – Loki, she suspected, had deceived her far more often than she ever knew – but Frigga was not above taking advantage of such rumors when it suited her purpose.

It took a long while for the beginning to come out in any coherent form, but once it did – she'd met a man who promised to cure her from an affliction – the story continued with minimal coaxing required.

"What man?" Frigga asked.

"A man…from Svartalfheim."

"His _name_, Vigdis. Now," Bragi put in angrily.

It took several more minutes before she could speak sense again; Frigga in the meantime flashed Bragi a warning look.

"Brokk," the girl said, flinching as she spoke it aloud. "I don't know his full name. He's a master of magic. He made me better, for a while."

Frigga swallowed hard, no more questions forthcoming at the moment. She knew exactly who Brokk of Svartalfheim was: that mean-spirited friend of Loki's whom Odin had forbidden him to see because he was such a bad influence. If he'd become so powerful as to be termed a "master of magic," she'd been unaware of it. She hadn't seen him in centuries, not since Odin had also banned him from Asgard.

"And what is this affliction he cured you of, for a time?" she finally asked.

"I don't know the name for it, Your Majesty. Our own healers could do nothing. I have terrible dreams. They seem so real, and when I have them, I believe they _are_ real. They don't let me sleep. When I wake up, it's like I never slept at all, and it was happening night after night. I was failing in my studies. I couldn't stay awake. I couldn't _think_ properly. I was jumping at shadows. I thought I was losing my mind. And he came to me, and he said he could fix _everything_," she said, wide-eyed again by the end.

"Send for Eir," Frigga instructed the nearest Einherjar, who saluted and obeyed. "So Brokk helped you, for a while. Tell me what he asked from you in return." She was skipping over details – how and where did she meet Brokk, and when did this affliction and the meetings begin – but others could fill in those gaps. Frigga wanted to get straight to the heart of the matter. Besides, she was fairly certain Brokk had "cured" what he himself had caused, though she'd never heard of him having the ability to invade dreams – a frightful ability indeed.

"He told me I should leave my studies and take a position serving in the Feasting Hall, that there would be openings because a terrible war was on the horizon. And…"

"Continue," Frigga said, motioning with her hand.

"He said he was a friend of the prince. Prince Loki. And they were trying to stop the war in secret. He said all I had to do was report what was said at this table," Vigdis said, pressing her palms flat against it.

Frigga nodded, trying to concentrate on Vigdis's tale through her sudden distraction, trying to think back over what had been said at this table.

"And then there was the explosion. I told him I couldn't meet him anymore. In the beginning, I told him I could get a position in the throne room itself, and he told me not to! When the throne room exploded, I knew! I knew he was lying! And I told him I wouldn't meet him anymore. I'm a loyal Aesir, Your Majesty, I swear it! He threatened me. He told me I'd be branded a traitor, even executed. But I'm not a traitor, I'm not! I didn't tell anyone, because I was afraid, and then the dreams started again, and Brokk found me at the market, and he said I could be tried for treason, or driven mad by my affliction, or I could keep reporting what was said at the table. And I…I'm a coward, Your Majesty, I'm such a coward…"

Vigdis continued sobbing, pleading for understanding, but Frigga tuned her out. Part of her sympathized with this naïve young girl; part of her believed she'd been willfully naïve and held her in disdain. There would be time later for consideration of her crimes and whatever factors may mitigate them, and for determining exactly what she'd told Brokk. For now, one question burned on Frigga's mind. But she wasn't sure how to ask it. It wasn't a question, really. It was a word – a word with a thousand questions swimming around it in a murky soup of fear and dread and worry and love.

_Loki._

"Did you ever meet with anyone other than Brokk about this?"

Vigdis shook her head, her face a red wet mess.

"What else did Brokk say about Prince Loki?"

She wiped at her nose and looked up in clear confusion. "Nothing else. Only that they were friends and were secretly working together."

"But you never saw him."

"No, Your Majesty." Vigdis's eyes then went wide. "Oh, no, Your Majesty! He was lying. I'm sure Prince Loki has nothing to do with whatever Brokk is doing."

"Of course he does't," Frigga said sharply, causing Vigdis to cringe and bury her face in her hands. She didn't need to turn. She _knew_ what the expression on Bragi's face would be. He, too, knew of Loki's past association with Brokk. She didn't want to see that expression. She straightened her spine, smoothed her face to betray no emotion, and waited.

"My queen…?" Eir asked tentatively when she arrived, startling Frigga. Her beige robes were stained red and her graying hair only partially remained in its typical coils pinned up to her head.

"See to this girl. Take her to the Healing Room, the private wing. Then lock her in a cell until we're ready to question her further."

"Your Majesty, if I may?" one of the Einherjar spoke up, continuing only when Frigga nodded. "The cells all hold warriors from the other realms. It's no place for a woman. Unless we put her with the female Fire Giants."

Frigga ignored Vigdis's look of sudden panic. "Fine. Keep her in the Healing Room, then, but under guard."

The guard nodded, Eir sat down beside Vigdis, and Frigga put a hand up to stop whatever it was Bragi had started to say. She walked to the far end of the Feasting Hall, where it opened up onto a balcony overlooking the beauty of Asgard. Night had fallen, and the smoke to the west was no longer visible, but a faint flickering light in the distance told her fire still raged. She knew that was where Thor would be, using Mjolnir to try to bring down enough rain to stop the flames from destroying its largest forest and spreading to Asgardian homes.

She looked to the east, where beyond her view Svartalfheim attacked with perhaps a thousand warriors. No one had time to stop and count them. She knew that was where Odin would be, leading the defense, turning it to attack, wielding Gungnir for Asgard's protection as he had for millennia. He was not young anymore. Such efforts would tire him, and tire him beyond what a good night's sleep would resolve.

She stared straight out to the south. Toward the wooden observatory and the remains of the bridge. She knew that was where Loki had been_._ Trying to steal the tesseract. To what end she did not know, but it was hard to imagine a scenario in which he was doing it for Asgard's security. He'd nearly killed two Einherjar in his attempt. And two Einherjar swords had come away stained with his blood, one of them shorn cleanly in half.

Frigga felt the tightening in her throat, the drawing together of her brow, and she took a deep steadying breath. She would not cry. Not when she bore this level of responsibility. She pressed a hand to her stomach, for she felt sick. The Einherjar had never seen who had set off the silent alarm inside the observatory, who had fought a brief and bizarre battle with them, hovering with feet at the level of their chests, then popping out of existence in a burst of light. They suspected the Dark Elves, two of them, in fact. But Frigga knew who had fallen for the trap the instant Huskol began his report.

_You will not cry,_ she ordered herself.

She looked to the east again, where Odin fought. Surely they were beating back the Dark Elves by now. She wanted Odin back here. She didn't want to bear this burden alone.

/

* * *

/

"Look!" Sif shouted, then wrenched her sword from the body of the Svartalf she'd just been fighting. She stumbled backward with the momentum, bumping into Fandral, who was too busy concentrating on the Dark Elf coming straight at him on horseback to do any other looking.

He stared open-mouthed, sword sheathed, at the long curved sword bearing down him, as though frozen in terror. Sif shook her head and took a moment to watch, catching her breath_. Two days of fighting and he still puts on a show._

As the Dark Elf swung his sword in a well-practiced move intended to separate the enemy's head from his neck, Fandral dropped to the dirt into a roll, lifting his sword at just the right moment in a well-practiced move to separate the enemy's arm from his body. Unbalanced with the loss of both his arm and the incredibly heavy scimitar the Svartalf cavalry used, he pitched over the side of his steed and hit the ground hard. Sif finished him before Fandral was fully righted.

"You're going to get yourself killed like that," she said, rounding on Fandral and shoving hard at his shoulder. "This isn't the training grounds. You don't win points for style."

Fandral laughed giddily, and Sif recognized the reaction, the strange disconnect from gritty, brutal reality; she'd gone through such a stage herself in the afternoon. "Calm down, Sif. Let your hair down, so to speak. This is the end, we're allowed to have a little fun. In fact, I think the Aesir training manual says it's required."

Sif pushed an angry breath out her nose and looked around. The enemy's numbers _were_ thinning, else they wouldn't be able to stop and discuss it. The All-Father astride Sleipnir with Gungnir in hand had certainly made a difference; the Svartalf cavalry was ferocious. "Maybe they're retreating," she said, pointing off to where she'd seen a few crackles in the air. The initial portal that the Dark Elf army had come through had closed on its own after several hours, and another one was now beginning to take shape in almost the same spot.

"They _must_ be retreating," Volstagg said, lumbering over, breathing heavily, his right hand tucked under his left arm, his double-bladed battle ax in his left hand instead of the usual right. "It's about time. I haven't eaten since breakfast yesterday, and I've missed the little ones' bedtimes two nights in a row."

Sif nodded while trying to get a better look at Volstagg's hidden hand; Fandral's attempt at a clever retort was cut off by the sudden approach of four Dark Elves on horseback, reminding them all that they were here to fight, not talk. A moment to catch their breaths and take stock of each other, however, was refreshing, and Sif molded her body into a battle stance again.

Once four more Dark Elves were dispatched, Sif's eyes again sought out the place where the portal had begun to develop. It was fully formed now, and silvery light raced across it like fire over oil and bathed the battlefield in its brilliance. Sif thrust her sword and shield into the air, ready to cry out in victory. She, Volstagg, and Fandral stood waiting, catching their breath again. There was no need to pursue the remaining Dark Elves; they would soon be fleeing for their own realm.

The silver light retreated to the edges of the portal.

And Dark Elves emerged from it with their own battle cries.

Sif's sword and shield slowly lowered, along with her jaw.

"Form up again! Attack!" Volstagg shouted, rushing forward with a speed that belied his size.

She glanced at Fandral, who in turn glanced at her, all traces of frivolity evaporated, and the two of them fell into place behind Volstagg, joining with the rapidly reforming lines of the Aesir, surging forward to bottle up the Svartalf reinforcements before they could fill the grounds again.

/

* * *

/

Jane sat at her desk, staring blankly at her laptop and the lack of new e-mails. It was 6:00, and she'd already been up for an hour. Outside her narrow cardboard-covered window, only a tiny bit of refracted sunlight made it over the horizon, the sun itself long gone, whether it was 5:00 or 6:00, noon or midnight. She'd only managed a few hours of sleep, unable to stop thinking about Loki, and what had happened to him, and what was going on in Asgard, and why he'd come back here. _"None of your concern."_ She couldn't imagine now why she'd accepted that as a valid answer yesterday afternoon. It might have had something to do with that nauseating wound on his shoulder, or all of that blood dripping down his-

_Deep breath._ The twisting in her stomach passed.

She needed answers. She _deserved_ answers. She had a legitimate reason to fear for her safety with Loki here. She didn't fully understand the whole enchantment thing; maybe it was what had kept her and everyone else here alive all this time. But it hadn't stopped him from strangling her, and if she understood correctly, according to him, in a sense it had _caused_ him to squeeze harder and harder on her throat because he'd misunderstood the enchantment's warning. Regardless, she wasn't ready to put near-strangulation in the "let bygones be bygones, we all have bad days" category.

She wanted to know about Thor, too. If he was still king. If he had a First Officer at his side telling him he wasn't allowed to go on the away missions because he was king. And of course that was _Star Trek_, but…why not? If they were really fighting it out with someone, though, it was hard for her to imagine that Thor wouldn't overrule his Asgardian First Officer and be right there in the thick of the fight.

And then there was Loki himself, and the condition he'd come back in. He'd seemed so nonchalant about the whole thing, as though discovering you have a broken-off blade sticking out of your back was less a concern then stubbing your toe. _He_ may have been entirely blasé about the whole thing – he seemed more upset about his sliced open boot than anything else – but Jane was wracked with guilt. Loki deserved punishment for what he did…but there was punishment and then there was bleeding out right in front of her from half a dozen wounds. Wounds that she might be responsible for him getting.

So she sat, doing nothing, staring at the laptop, with her door open. Waiting for Loki to get up for breakfast and walk by. She hadn't seen him when she'd come back to the station, or at dinner, or after dinner, when she'd stuck to her original plans and gone out for a mini-celebration at the DSL. She assumed he was in his room, but she wasn't quite ready to go banging on his door. And for all she knew he had one of those magic sound dampener things up anyway and wouldn't hear her knock.

Her computer beeped and Jane jumped. She looked at the screen. It was an incoming VOIP call, from Erik. It was just after 7:00. Jane bit her bottom lip. She could ignore the call. If she answered it she was going to have to lie, or at the very least, not mention some very big truths. Or…she could actually tell the truth. That Loki was two doors down. That he'd just gone to Asgard and come back with a bunch of stab wounds and somebody else's blood on his face. She nodded to herself. _You can do this, Jane._ She couldn't _not_ take his call. At least it was voice only, no video.

She pressed "Accept Call." "Hi, Erik!" she said with forced cheer, keeping her voice low because her door was still open. "It's so good to hear from you."

"Thank God, Jane, I'm so glad you answered. I sent you a couple of e-mails and when I didn't hear back…"

Jane grimaced. She could hear the relief in his voice. "I'm so sorry. We've had some…problems with the internet service here lately. You know, there's only so much bandwidth, and science gets priority."

"Oh, sure, I understand. It's just…I worry. And it's not like you've never given me reason to."

"I know," she said with a laugh, and it wasn't even all that hard. As much as she'd been afraid to talk to Erik, hearing his gruff-but-soft lightly-accented voice coming out of her computer speakers right here in her room was almost as good as getting a hug. "So how about you, is everything okay?"

"Of course it is. I called to check on you. Wanted to make sure no one forgot to pay the heating bill."

Jane laughed again. "We pay it early, just in case. The mailman doesn't make it out here too often."

"So how's your work been coming along?" Erik asked, after a chuckle.

"Oh, well…" Her work…since Loki left it had been mostly staring blankly at nothing and running more and more of the data the probe gathered during its roundtrip journey to Asgard through various data analysis programs. "Nothing too exciting," she said, certain her voice screamed _liar, liar, pants on fire._ "The SPT team thinks they've found another galaxy cluster. We were just celebrating it last night."

Jane was grateful for that galaxy cluster, and the additional time she'd spent last night looking over the supporting data during the party. It gave her something neutral to talk about that was of mutual interest; for several minutes Erik asked questions and Jane answered them.

"All right, well, I know you've got to get to work, but don't get discouraged, Jane. I know you're going to find the answers you're looking for, especially now that you've got all that fancy equipment and the perfect atmosphere to use it in. And I'm so proud of you. For never giving up, for standing up for what you believe in, for your courage…well. I don't mean to go on. I just…like I said, I was worried."

"I know. I'll do a better job staying in touch. And you, you take care of yourself. A frozen meal and a beer is _not_ supper," Jane said, relaxing back into familiar ground after the guilt trip Erik had unwittingly started to send her on.

"Yes, ma'am. And a double espresso isn't breakfast."

Jane rolled her eyes and laughed, wishing she could have that hug for real. They said their goodbyes and that was that. She'd just successfully committed the biggest lie of omission she'd ever made in her entire life, with the most important person in her life.

All because of Loki. Loki, who'd blocked her incoming and outgoing e-mail and made Erik worry about her, when Erik had enough to deal with himself…because of what _Loki_ did to him.

Lips pressed into a thin line and expression stony, Jane stood up without making a conscious decision to do so. It was now 7:22, and Loki _still _hadn't come to her door or walked past it – she'd continued to keep an eye out during her talk with Erik. He never slept that late. If he was going to hide out in his room, she wasn't going to wait around all day for him to finally stick his head out of the door. She was going to talk to him _now._

She steeled herself for the confrontation, then marched down to his door and knocked. When she knocked a second time and still got no answer, she figured he did indeed probably have his sound dampener up. She went back to her room, grabbed a sheet of paper and a pen, and scribbled out, "I need to talk to you. Now." She hesitated over the "now," and thought about re-writing it with a "please" or something instead…but quickly rejected the idea. She wanted him to know she was serious.

Jane went back to his door and pushed the note under it. She waited long enough to begin feeling awkward standing out here in the hallway. She wondered if he was in there at all. He'd said he was going to heal the cut on his leg in his room, but maybe he'd left again sometime in the night.

There was only one way to find out. Jane pushed the door open and stepped inside.

Her eyes first fell on the open suitcase on the floor, in front of the armoire, a few items of clothing – all leather, as far as she could tell – in disarray inside it and spilling over onto the opened top piece. The two times she'd been inside his room before, she'd never seen anything in disarray…or array. She'd never seen any personal belongings, period.

As her gaze rose from the floor, she gave a small gasp at the realization that there was a large lump on the bed underneath the dark green comforter. When she'd first walked in and hadn't immediately seen him, she'd assumed he wasn't there. Her first thought when she realized he _was_ was to get out, immediately. She'd been furious with him when he'd walked in on her sleeping. She didn't want to see _him_ furious again. But then she realized he hadn't heard her come in. And maybe the sounds of the door, still open behind her, had been dampened, but…he wasn't moving. She couldn't tell if he was breathing. She couldn't actually see _him_ at all, only a lump under the covers.

She closed the door and stepped further into the room. Erik had said he was proud of her courage. _Courage…stupidity…fine line,_ she thought as she crept closer and closer to the head of the bed, where the satchel he always had with him was slung over the metal post. When she reached the head, she was looking right at him, and she fell still, mesmerized. This man, asleep and vulnerable, had tried to conquer her world. But no one, she supposed, looked evil, or even all that scary, when they slept. He looked peaceful, even innocent like this, eyes closed, face completely relaxed – she realized she wasn't certain she'd ever seen him completely relaxed before – black hair splayed out over the white USAP-issue pillowcase in stark contrast.

His face was pale, too…he was on his side, facing her, the covers pulled up to his chin, so she couldn't tell if he was breathing. He'd lost so much blood… _"We aren't easily killed, but we can be,"_ Thor had said, or something like that. She started to reach out a hand, to see if she could feel his breath, but thought better of it, uncertain if she would still have that hand if he _was_ breathing and woke. Instead, she stepped back out of what she predicted his reach to be. "Loki," she whispered.

/

* * *

/

Loki stumbled down a corridor with walls that glowed blue. He wasn't sure how he knew they were blue, because other than the blue, he saw nothing. He was blind. He knew he wasn't _really_ blind. He knew he was dreaming. He knew this wasn't real. His hands pressed into the blue of the wall that threatened to spread through him like a virus and pull him in. He didn't want to touch it at all, but he had no choice. He didn't even know where he was going. At first he'd thought this to be the corridor outside his old chambers, but he'd already been feeling his way along it for much longer than it would have taken to traverse the entire length of that corridor. He couldn't see the end of it, and he couldn't see the beginning of it. He wondered if he should turn around, try the other direction. But he'd passed nothing that way. He'd come too far to turn back now. He set his jaw and pressed forward into the unknown.

"Loki," his mother's voice called, and a memory slipped into the dream. Suddenly he was lying in bed, and he was just lucid enough inside his dream to wonder what had happened to the corridor. "Loki, can you see me?"

"No, Mother," he answered, and even though he was perfectly aware of the look of concern and fear on her own face, his mind told him he was blind. It wasn't fair. Thor had had this particular illness when he was an infant, but Loki hadn't had it until his early youth, when its symptoms were much worse. He should have been afraid, but he wasn't. He just didn't want to see that look in her eyes.

"Try harder. If you just try harder, you can see me. Loki? Can you hear me?"

"No, Mother," he repeated, but then grew confused. _Hear you?_ He wasn't deaf, he was blind. Why was she asking if he could _hear_ her?

"Loki?"

This time he knew immediately this was not his mother's voice. His eyes shot open and he bolted upright, heart racing. Jane was standing in the middle of his bedchamber, staring at him, tense with fear at his sudden movement. "What…what are you doing here?" he asked, his voice still raspy with sleep. He hoped to all that was sacred that he had not just had some half-awake conversation with her in which he'd called her "Mother."

"I…I'm sorry I…" Jane stammered, glancing toward the door. He looked slightly wild, hair mussed as it had been the other time she'd come in here when he was in and had been in bed – pretending to be sick that time, she recalled – but now bare-chested but for the gauze she'd applied yesterday, and that huge round red non-ruby against pale skin, and a look somewhere between nervous and angry in his eyes. And he'd just called her "Mother." She took a step back toward the door, but changed her mind. "You're all right, then?" she asked.

"Of course I'm all right," he bit back, fighting the urge to wipe the sleep from his eyes, reviling how vulnerable he appeared before her. "I don't need a nursemaid. And I'm certain we had no appointment I've forgotten."

"No, you just…you're always up early. I've been waiting for you. And when you never came out of your room, well, I was…" She couldn't quite bring herself to say it.

"Concerned? I'm _touched_, Jane, truly. It's heart-warming," he mocked, hoping she would get mad enough to turn her back and leave. He didn't want to deal with her at all today. Or ever.

"You know, I guess I was, for about half a second. And then you opened your mouth. _Your_ heart must be a block of ice," Jane said, standing her ground.

His fists clenched at his side, resting on the sheet over the mattress. "Get out."

"No. Not until you answer my questions."

"You're in no position to make demands," he said, just before remembering that Thor had said the same thing to him, when he was emptying bottles of Johnnie Walker. He could already tell by the reaction on her face that she didn't accept it any more than he had.

"Oh, really? Because I think I am. I have two words for you, Loki. Satellite. Phone. The only reason I haven't used one yet is because I decided that everyone here was safer if I didn't. I'm not so sure of that anymore, so you better start convincing me by answering my questions."

"I have two words for you, Jane Foster," he began, and then he remembered the curses. _Asgardian sword_ would be an empty threat, and she knew it. Instead he jumped down from the bed, landing right in front of her and making her take a step back, delighting in his ability to intimidate despite his limitations. "Ask. Away," he said with a polite smile and slightly widened eyes before putting his back to her and moving over to his wardrobe, past the open suitcase, which he hadn't bothered to put away the night before. He'd been too exhausted after cleaning and healing the cut on his leg, then laboring over the ruined boot for a solid hour, then putting the metal salvaged from his back to good use.

Jane gave a shudder and watched as he reached into the armoire and took out the green henley he so often wore, then pulled it on over his head and ran his hands through his hair. When he turned back to her, he looked a little more like himself. "First, I want you to undo whatever it is exactly you did to my e-mail."

"That isn't a question."

"No, it isn't. I still want you to do it. My friends are getting worried because they can't reach me. Erik called me this morning."

"What did you tell him?" Loki asked cautiously.

"I didn't tell him anything. It would upset him too much, and he can't take much more stress like that."

"Fine," Loki lied. He would go and approve her messages this morning, and she could _think_ she was in control. "Now, do you have any actual questions, or do you expect to keep making demands?"

"I need to know what your plans are here."

"With a little effort I can almost pretend that was a question. But I've already answered it. I just need to do some thinking. I don't have any _plans_, not the way you mean it. Ruling Antarctica is tempting, but I think I can manage to control myself."

Jane smiled sarcastically. "Then why are you back? Why can't you do your thinking in Asgard? What happened there? How did you get all…all…"

Loki put up a hand, his palm to her. "Let me stop you. I'm losing track of your questions," he said, delaying. He hadn't put even a second's thought into what he was going to tell Jane. He had naively assumed she would prefer to keep her distance and leave him alone. "I had a lovely family reunion," he said after a moment.

Jane felt a flash of anger. "Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"That. Play games. Tell lies. Did you walk into the middle of a war?" His eyes went a little wide, and Jane knew she was right. "Was it Svartalfheim? Are you at war with Svartalfheim?"

His eyes went wider. "How did you know- Did Thor tell you that? You knew? You knew that and you said nothing?"

Righteous indignation died a quick but painful death. "I…I didn't exactly know…he said there was some kind of delegation from Svartalfheim going to Jotunheim, maybe to make a deal or something. He wasn't sure what was going on."

"When was this?"

"When we were in New Zealand. Loki…I'm sorry. I should have told you."

"What else? What else did he tell you?"

"Nothing, that's all."

"Think, Jane, what else?" he said, leaning forward.

Jane shrank away from him with two more steps back. Her hip bumped his chair; she was slowly letting herself be backed into a corner, literally. "That's all I know! He…he was worried about being away from Asgard. He was acting as the king then. His father, your father, was in something he called the 'Odinsleep.' It was the last time I saw him. We only had a few minutes. He just wanted to make sure I was all right. He…he was making sure I was safe. From you," she added, though she wasn't even sure she'd realized that at the time. _He said Heimdall couldn't see me._ She decided to hold back on that part, though she wasn't sure why. She hadn't understood what it meant at the time; she thought maybe she did now, and she assumed it was Loki's doing. Everything was Loki's doing. Except him bleeding all over the jamesway floor. That was her doing, she thought with another sickening wave of guilt.

_Safe from me._ Loki scoffed. Everyone in this entire realm was safe from him, thanks to Odin. And thanks to _Jane_, he'd nearly wound up rotting away on Brokk's sofa in Svartalfheim. _He should have worried whether _I _was safe from _her. He wanted to express his displeasure more fully, but he had to settle for glowering at her. _Because she is safe from me._

Jane tucked her hair behind her ears and bit down on one of her knuckles, then slowly drew it away from her mouth, remembering how Thor had kissed her there. "Did you really see your family?"

"When I returned here, did I look like I'd had time for chatting with the family?"

"Just answer the question, Loki. Please," Jane said, another terrible pang of guilt hitting her. Maybe he could heal those wounds, or most of them, easily and quickly, but she was sure that getting them had still hurt. And angry as she was at him for everything he'd done, she was no sadist.

"No," Loki growled. Particularly since he had no family with which to chat.

"Thor? You didn't see him at all?"

"I did not," Loki said, then lowered his eyes for a moment. He couldn't hurt her physically – and truthfully he knew he wouldn't even if he could – but words had long been his best weapon. "But I was told he was injured."

Jane blanched. "H…how? What happened?"

"I don't know the details. There was an explosion. He was nearby." And fully recovered, according to Jolgeir.

Jane was silent for a long moment. "What else…did you see? You arrived in the capital? Near the palace? Like in the imagery from the probe? But you were gone for two days. Were they fighting there? You were trapped by it?"

"Exactly like the probe," Loki said, remembering the blurred streaks of the original imagery; the probe had been caught in Asgard's gravity and had been rapidly falling where the observatory once stood, just like he had. "The palace is not so near. Relatively so, I suppose. And no, they weren't fighting in the city. The battles were beyond the walls. What difference does it make to you? They were fighting to the east and to the west. Does that interest you as well?"

Jane never heard Loki's question. Her brain had slipped into overdrive, and she lost track of everything else around her. Until she blinked and found Loki's face inches from hers. "What?" she said, jerking away and bumping into his desk.

"I think I've answered enough questions. Will you go away now? I can pick you up and carry you out if you refuse."

"What? Uh, yeah, sure, whatever." He was standing right in the middle of the narrow room, so she stepped past him sideways, then hurried out, glancing one last time over her shoulder before closing the door and forcing herself back to her own room at a walk instead of a run.

Loki stewed in his room for a few minutes as he put his suitcase away and changed into his dockers and boat shoes. _Of course all she cares about is Thor. How quickly she forgets her supposed concern._ His right arm hurt every time he moved it. _Her fault._ It hurt a little less than yesterday, but not much. He had worked on it some right before going to bed and had healed some of the deepest muscle damage, but it was difficult work, and he could do nothing for the areas where Brokk's magic still lingered. Even his own natural healing appeared to have slowed. _Her. Fault._

He picked up the satchel and got it over his neck – made more difficult by his bad shoulder. Out in the berthing wing corridor he glared at Jane's closed door as he made his way to the main corridor to get some breakfast and then go to the Computer Room and inspect her e-mail. He shook his head. _"And what were their battle tactics? And where was Thor fighting? And why weren't they fighting in the north and the south?" _he heard her asking. _And, and, and, and._ Her questions had at least been logical, until the word _Thor_ had come up. Why she suddenly wanted to know where in Asgard Pathfinder had sent him, and where the palace was, and where the fighting was…

Loki stopped mid-stride just outside the berthing wing. Someone passed by, leaving the galley, and said "Good morning," but Loki ignored him, never really even noticed him.

_No. She would not be _that_ stupid._

He turned back, slowly at first, opening the door to go back into the berthing wing. His speed picked up, and he reached Jane's door at a run, throwing the door open. She'd ceded the right to be angry at him for that when she'd done the same to him earlier. The chambers were empty. He stepped behind the door; Big Red was gone from the hook she kept it on. He took one shaky breath and released it, then raced back to the main corridor and Destination Zulu, through the plastic sheets, out the thick metal door, and down the stairs, into the freezing darkness of the polar morning.

/

* * *

/

Jane placed her right hand on top of Pathfinder, careful that the structural field generator was in contact with the platform intended for the probe. She pressed the button.

_**Five.**_

_Thor's hurt. He would come for me if I were hurt._

_**Four.**_

_No fighting where I'm going. No swords. No massive bleeding stab…_ Jane swallowed heavily.

_**Three.**_

_If Loki can do it, so can I._

_**Two.**_

_Pathfinder works. The probe made it there and back. Loki made it there and back._

_**One**_…

* * *

/

_So...I hope the end caught you by a bit of surprise! Hmmm...what will happen next? The next chapter ran the gamut, for me writing it. Part slow and difficult, part pretty quick and fun, part rip-your-heart-out-and-stomp-on-it. For me. No idea if it'll induce that reaction in you, I generally don't write with reaction-inducing intent._

_Coupla things - (1) It would be handy to know, as a writer, what makes a character resonate with readers (I can only speculate). It was amazing to me to see how many people specifically commented on liking Jolgeir. If anything comes to mind about why you particularly liked him, would you mind letting me know? For future reference for other fiction. Jolgeir will appear again, BTW. (2) Ever wondered how Tony wound up with that fishpond in Stark Tower? "names are hard guys" has given us the answer. Check out her "What to do with the hole in floor" story. Recommended!_

_As you might guess, no previews/excerpt for Chapter 52 "Cruelty" unless you're cool with spoilers and specifically request it, in which case, easy enough to provide. Oh, okay, here's your preview: Yes, there's some cruelty involved._

_Thanks for reading, thanks for reviewing, see you next chapter!_


	53. (52) Cruelty

**Beneath**

**Chapter Fifty-Two – Cruelty**

Loki dashed across the ice, slipping a few times but never completely losing his footing, in the boat shoes that were perhaps meant for wearing on boats, but certainly not for outdoors at the South Pole. The summer camp jamesways were close compared to the Dark Sector Lab, but the distance for a time seemed insurmountable as the cold dry air burned his lungs.

By the time he reached the jamesway he and Jane had commandeered, he'd already decided there was no point checking around back first; if she had already made it to Pathfinder, running back there would only waste more time. He threw open the door and swept his gaze across the table; the gadgets he'd left there yesterday were gone. "Where is it? Where is it?" he asked no one…or Jane, really. He'd modified an extra structural integrity field generator, basically out of boredom while waiting for her to finish the circuit board. "What did you do with it?"

He dropped down to look under the table and found a box. He yanked the box out, and right on top, wrapped in a piece of white cloth, was the gadget he needed. There were other electronic parts and other white cloths in the box, but he didn't bother with them; there was no time. He slipped the device over his wrist as he ran back outside and around back; there was no sign of Jane.

Loki skidded to a halt and slipped, bumping into Pathfinder, and pressed the button before he'd fully righted himself and steadied Pathfinder. He pressed the device on his wrist down against Jane's machine and tried to stand still for the longest five seconds of his life.

_**Five**__._

_She'll be far below me already._ The possibility that it could already be too late did not merit consideration.

_**Four**__._

He scanned his memories for an appropriate solution.

_**Three.**_

He found one, from a time long ago when he'd tried to help Thor in mastering Mjolnir.

_**Two.**_

But that hadn't gone well. Loki had been accused of trying to kill him and gone into hiding on Svartalfheim.

_**One**_.

_Irrelevant. Why is this accursed thing taking so-_

/

* * *

/

Thor circled the area surrounding the Felingard Forest from above, searching for any embers sparking into flame, or any lingering Fire Giants attempting to ignite something else or flee the area to make a new attempt somewhere away from Mjolnir. There was only one Thor, and the Fire Giants had been widely dispersed and he could not create and sustain thunderstorms everywhere at once, but at least at night it had been easy to spot the initial flames. In the bright midday sunshine, depending on what had been set alight and where, they were difficult to see until they roared out of control.

Still, he saw nothing now. The combined forces of Einherjar and citizen warriors had easily overwhelmed most of the remaining Fire Giants once they became soaked and chilled in the early pre-dawn hours; Muspelheim had sent not warriors this time, but destroyers. Fire-wielders. The Aesir who caught them showed little mercy. Hundreds of Aesir had been sent to the Healing Room with severe burns and lung damage; dozens, including some fifteen Einherjar who failed to escape their camp after it was set ablaze, had burned to death.

After a quick check with the commanders on the ground, Thor headed back to the east. Out of the corner of his eye, to the south, he thought he saw a flash of light. He turned his head in that direction, but nothing was out of place, so he continued on, returning to the site of the battle he'd left yesterday.

What he saw shocked him. The Aesir were lined up behind the stone block wall, the cavalry, winged or otherwise, nowhere in sight. The wall's own defenses were active, lobbing heavy stone projectiles into the field, while Aesir archers perched in turrets and other warriors manned the wall itself against the onslaught. The mass of attackers – Dark Elves and Vanir, Thor could tell only as he drew close – was so dense that from above they appeared as one seething, roiling creature. They numbered in the thousands.

A glint of metal somehow reflecting more of the sun's rays than anything around it caught Thor's eye; when he looked down he realized his father, standing at the head of a small cluster of warriors that included his friends, was signaling him. They parted for Thor to drop to the ground among them.

"Asgard is secure to the west?" Odin asked, before Thor's feet even met the earth.

"Yes, Father." A fuller report could wait. Odin had never been one for unnecessarily long-winded explanation or conversation.

He nodded at Volstagg, who began to fill Thor in. "We had to fall back. They opened a second portal just as we thought we'd put them to rout and they soon outnumbered us greatly. We have reinforcements now, but we're holding position, weakening them as much as we can. Then we'll permit a controlled breach," he said, pointing at the wall with a heavily bandaged right hand.

Thor listened as the plan was laid out; the idea was to let the enemy _think_ they'd overwhelmed the defenders, then drive them into a trap and crush the rest. The plan was not without risk; were too many of them to escape, and turn to Asgard's buildings, or supplies, or the injured, or the general citizenry, instead of her fighting warriors, it would be difficult to contain them. Odin had planned on preparing the trap himself, but with Thor's arrival, plans changed. A spot was chosen and cleared, and Thor pounded Mjolnir into the ground once, twice, again and again, until a mammoth pit was formed over compacted dirt. It was not so glorious as greeting each one of the enemy with a raised weapon or bare fist, but even this pit would hold only perhaps half of the attackers. Plenty would remain to fight the proper way.

When he launched himself out of the pit with Mjolnir and back beside his father, Odin clasped his arm, and through his exhaustion and the sweat dripping from his forehead he felt a familiar rush, the thrill of another battle to come. He remembered standing on the edge of a cliff, surrounded by the enemy, his father on his right, his brother on his left, his friends arrayed about them. _"Father, we'll finish them together!"_ He'd longed for it so badly he could taste it, berserker bloodlust returning the absolute self-confidence that had faltered moments earlier. He'd meant every word of it, those words Loki had thrown back in his face while in SHIELD custody. He _had_ wanted to destroy them all in that moment, and doing it alongside his father would have only made the conquest sweeter.

How things had changed.

He still couldn't fully conceive of it, that Loki was one of _them_. Because he wasn't. Loki was his brother. Troubled. Flawed. _Cruel_, his mind whispered. But still his brother.

Odin squeezed his arm tighter, and Thor's eyes regained focus and met his. He squeezed back. He still wanted it, to fight alongside his father, even just to _see _his father truly fight. He'd wanted it all his life. In his fantasies, though, he'd seen only enemy after enemy, most often Frost Giants, felled by Gungnir and Mjolnir. He'd never pictured Aesir carrying the bodies of fellow Aesir from the battleground around him.

Thor ran to the wall to join the others, sending Mjolnir flying from his hand to decimate a group of warriors pressing toward the stone barricade.

/

* * *

/

Jane screamed, but only once. Despite what repeated encounters with Loki might make of her, she really wasn't a screamer. The scream ended quickly, when she realized if she didn't close her mouth immediately she was going to be retching up bile from her empty stomach. Jaw clamped closed, she then realized she was falling – _really_ falling. Fast. She managed to look down. _Bad idea._ There had to be a bottom down there somewhere…but she couldn't see it. Only water and stone and sky, and darkness below. Eyes clamped closed, she tucked her arms and legs in and clenched every muscle in her body in some sort of primal instinct that she knew wasn't going to protect her, in that part of her mind that somehow always remained detached and analytical.

Suddenly she remembered where she was, supposedly.

"Thor!" she screamed until the breath left her lungs.

/

* * *

/

Loki was prepared this time. As soon as he felt gravity his eyes strained downward, while holding himself still to keep his fall controlled. There she was, so far beneath him, so tiny, that he might not have seen her at all were it not for the bright red jacket she wore. Manipulating the pressure of the air around him to create a slight but steady vacuum that would increase his rate of descent, he retrieved the net he'd made long ago, materializing it not between his hands as he usually did, but below Jane…he hoped.

A second later the red dot disappeared in a cloud of dust.

/

* * *

/

Jane's entire body jerked as she collided with something and bounced up once, her neck whipping painfully back. Her breath rushed out in a whoosh and her first thought was that she'd finally hit the ground and this moment marked her death. Then she sucked in lungfuls of air, or rather tried to, and was lost to racking coughs. With each wheezing inhale and hacking exhale, it sunk in further that she was not in fact dead, and her body was not broken.

She opened her eyes, then wiped with her gloves at them – they were just bulky enough to do no good and in fact make things worse. With her eyes tearing up rapidly, cycling between closed and barely open, she pulled the glove and liner from her right hand, stuffed them in a pocket, and rubbed her eyes, the tears helping to clear away the grit. She was on her back, knees bent and collapsed over to the left, and when she finally was able to see again she realized she was covered in a layer of dark gray dust. Right underneath her, she saw, was rope. Lots of rope, numerous lengths of it, knotted into a mesh: a net.

Her eyes then focused beyond her own body and she saw a sheer rock face in front of her and suddenly she processed motion again. _Upward_ motion. She gave another cough as her eyes darted wildly around her, searching for what was holding the net she was lying on. Vertigo hit her again when she realized _nothing_ was holding up the net. Her right hand clenched down hard on a section of rope, while her gloved left instinctively fumbled to do the same and could not. She looked up and gaped, then felt herself growing light-headed, and for a second Jane was certain she was going to pass out.

Loki was hovering in the air some fifteen or twenty feet above, looking down at her with an outstretched hand.

/

* * *

/

Jane had almost reached him when Loki realized both of them were perfectly visible, if not to Heimdall's particular brand of extra sight, then to every regular functioning eye.

He thought then immediately of Jolgeir, and of his own experience with blindness, brief but terrifying. _"Loki, can you see me?"_ he could still remember his mother asking, finally making him realize the darkness wasn't some grand hoax Thor was playing on him.

He made first himself then Jane invisible, taking care not to loosen his control over the steadily rising net; it required more effort than it should have. When Jane had risen to his height he lifted them both back up to the level of the bridge and set her down on it, far enough from the end that she wouldn't startle and fall right back off again. She sat up a little straighter. He sent the net away and her fingers scrambled in vain to find purchase on the flawlessly smooth surface beneath her. She then finally looked down from what had been almost a vacant stare to see what her hand touched. Her expression changed almost instantaneously.

"This…this is it. This is the Rainbow Bridge. The bifrost. This is _the_ bridge," she said, her brain happily fixating on something other than what had just happened. She had imagined it so many times. She could make out dark streaks of color in it, but she'd expected it to be brighter.

"Yes, well, currently it's no more than an extraordinarily long sidewalk to nowhere," Loki said drily, teetering between anger and relief.

Jane looked up; she'd managed to forget Loki was there for a few seconds. _This _was not how she'd imagined this going. Not that she'd spent that much time imagining it. She'd pretty much just decided to do it. And she hadn't told Loki because she didn't want to give him the chance to stop her or to follow her. "What are you doing here?" she asked, dazed and irritated.

"Oh, I don't know _Jane_," – he glanced pointedly at the end of the bifrost – "saving you from certain death, perhaps?"

Jane closed her eyes for a moment, but as soon as she did she could feel herself falling again – her eyes snapped open and she pressed her bare right palm harder against the cool surface of the bridge. "What was that? That you caught me with?" she asked quietly.

"A net. Here, get up," he said, holding out a hand. He wasn't terribly interested in having this pedantic conversation anyway, but especially not while she sat on the bridge at his feet like a child.

"I _know_ it was a net. I mean…with all the dust," she answered as she reluctantly held up her right hand for him to help her up. "Did you just make it? Out of dust?" She was unsteady on her feet, and Loki's hand went to her arm, long fingers wrapping around Big Red. Jane saw it but felt removed from it.

"Of course not. I made it out of _rope_, which I purchased at a market. It's simply dusty because it hasn't been used in a few centuries."

"_Centuries_? You caught me with a centuries-old net?" In her mind's eye she saw herself hitting that net, worn ancient ropes snapping, and her falling right through. She looked down at her hands, at the solid bridge beneath her feet, and suddenly for no identifiable reason the most important thing in the world was to have her left hand as free of the gloves as her right; the glove and liner went into a pocket as Loki spoke.

"No, I said I last _used_ it centuries ago. I _made _it…almost exactly a thousand years ago."

"You caught me with a thousand-year-old net. That you made. A thousand years ago."

Loki shook his head. _Hasn't it been five minutes yet?_ He stepped closer to Jane, not wanting himself to get severed in half like the sword he'd been impaled on. He hadn't taken the time to find a second transmitter; his return trip depended on Jane's. "Things that are made here last. And that net was made to handle…much more weight than you."

_Crack! Mjolnir slammed upward into his body, breaking his collarbone, the edge of it catching his chin and driving his head sharply backward; were he still a youth it might have snapped his neck. He stumbled backward and tried to spin away when he the saw the hammer swinging toward him again, but still it caught his left shoulder and he could feel something break there, too. Still weak and underweight from his long sentence, he lost his footing completely and fell to the ground face first, crying out when he instinctively tried to break his fall and his left arm gave out underneath him. He tried to push himself up and was sickened by the grinding sound coming from his collarbone. He felt a strong jerk at his collar, and found himself suddenly on his back. Mjolnir was on the ground next to him; Thor's fist was closing in fast on his face. He tried to block the blow, but Thor's arms were tree trunks next to his atrophied twigs. The strikes came one after another, five, six, seven – Loki lost count. When at last a reprieve came, he opened his eyes, one of them at least, the other refused to obey. Volstagg, Hogun, and Fandral were straining to hold Thor back, and Sif was standing next to Loki, leaning in to put herself between the two brothers, shouting something Loki could only pick out a few words of over his ringing ears. A minute or so passed, and his hearing quickly improved._

"_-killed him, Thor!" Sif was shrieking._

"_He tried to kill me," Thor said, his voice low, menacing._

_He wrenched his arm free of Volstagg's grip, young Sif jumped back in fear, and Thor landed a blow to Loki's stomach that had him coughing up blood and struggling not to be sick. He raised himself up into a partial sitting position on his right arm and tried to push himself back, beyond his brother's reach. In the meantime Thor's friends were shouting over each other and increasing their efforts to hold him back._

"_Stop it, Thor, he's your brother," Loki could just make out Fandral shouting over the others._

_Thor's face trembled with a rage and a hatred Loki had never seen before. "So was Baldur," he said, before breaking free for another stone fist to Loki's cheekbone._

Thor had never reached the net. He'd never even seen it. He'd only known that Loki had tricked him into letting go of Mjolnir while high above a deep rocky gorge. And then Thor's true feelings had come out. Time passed. Thor apologized. Loki forgave. Hadn't it always gone like that?

He looked down at Jane, who hadn't moved away from him at all, which was surprising, although she had turned her head toward the city. He wrinkled his nose at her hair, full of dust so thick it looked like a mass of cobwebs. "Why haven't we been brought back yet?" he asked. When Jane did not react, he repeated his question.

"_Things that are made here last."_ When Loki had said that, Jane had failed to process anything but the word "here." Because it finally got fully through her rattled head that "here" was no longer the South Pole. It was no longer Earth. It was no longer Earth's solar system, maybe not even the Milky Way. _Asgard._ Her gaze was drawn along the bridge to a massive golden gate several stories tall, and beyond, to a city in the distance in gleaming gold and silver with slightly pink hues from the day's first sunlight breaking over the horizon. It was so fantastic she simply stared, overwhelmed.

"Jane."

"What?" she asked, turning her head back, then jumping a bit, disoriented and surprised by how close Loki was.

"What's wrong with you?"

"Noth- Nothing. I'm just…nothing," she repeated. It wasn't true, not really. Her heart was still racing and she knew the strange detachment that she felt from everything around her was abnormal. _Shock_, she thought. But she also knew it would pass and she would be fine.

"All right. Then what's wrong with Pathfinder?"

"Pathfinder?"

"It's been more than five minutes."

"Five… Oh. I turned off the signal from the transmitter before I even left." _That_ she'd had the sense to plan for – the complete awe of seeing Asgard for the first time, and the likelihood that it would cause her to forget to flip the RF switch.

Loki frowned, let go of her arm, and stepped back from her; she started to stagger a bit and he grudgingly took hold of her again. "Give it to me."

"The switch? No. I came here to see Thor, and I'm not leaving until I do." And whatever exactly the shock was doing to her, Jane was pretty happy with, because her bravado was entirely lacking in the fear she knew she would have otherwise felt to defy him that overtly with his hand wrapped around her arm.

"You can't even stand up on your own. You aren't going anywhere. Give me the switch."

"If you don't let me go, I'll yell for him."

"Yell for whomever you like, as loudly as you like. No one can see or hear you." He craned his neck back as Jane opened her mouth and formed the beginning of Thor's name.

Jane stopped before she got the name out. She'd come here because Thor was _hurt_. Badly, she presumed, if he hadn't been able to just magically treat whatever his injury was. _Snap out of it!_ she ordered herself. Then she smiled, because it worked. She looked up at Loki and took a deep breath. "Heimdall!" she shouted at the top of her lungs.

Loki winced and pulled away; this time Jane managed to keep her balance without his support. "Heimdall can't here you either, Jane. But I promise you I _can_. Now, are there any other names you'd like to scream in my ear, or can we go?"

"I told you, I'm not going until I see Thor." Jane turned and began walking down the bridge, in a place that, whatever exactly it was, it was definitely not Earth. She couldn't yet quite fathom it, so she simply put one foot in front of the other.

Loki stood in place, watched her, and sighed. He could pin her down, find the switch in whatever pocket she'd hidden it in, wrest it from her, and take them back to Midgard. But if he did that he risked breaking it and stranding them here. He watched, unconcerned, as she put more distance between them. She could probably walk for half an hour before she reached the first street that met the bridge.

He thought about where she was headed. He was fairly confident she knew next to nothing of the layout of the city. Perhaps she realized if she continued straight she would reach the palace. But she would find nothing there. At least, she would not find Thor there. What would _he_ find there, if he could make it inside unseen? _Knowledge._ What had happened to the west, in the Felingard Forest? What had happened to the east? Did the fighting still rage? Who was winning? Why had Vigdis sold out her own people? Had his information helped? Little time had passed, less than a full day, but it was enough that new information should be available.

His gaze focused on Jane again. She was unzipping Big Red as she walked; she'd been sweating earlier. He took a deep breath. _Time to try truth again._

He easily caught up to her with his long gait. "Jane, stop."

"No."

"Listen to me. I told you he was injured. That was the truth. But I only said it because I was angry. He's fine now."

"Right," Jane said, never breaking stride.

"Jane. I'm telling you the truth. There was an explosion in the palace, but he's fully recovered."

"I'll just confirm that for myself, thank you." She didn't believe a word of it.

"Did you leave your head behind on Midgard? Asgard is at war. Where do you think he is? Reclining in the garden laughing at the squirrels and snacking on Pop-Tarts? You can't see him, Jane. You'd be dead before you got there."

She finally stopped and turned to look at him, her brain back to lagging behind what was going on around her. Isolated images flashed through her mind – Thor eating Pop-Tarts in some Disney fairy tale garden setting. Thor in all his armor, stirring up a small tornado, sweeping up both giants and elves. Her with a sword in her back. A flash of lightning cutting through the distant blue sky. She blinked. That one was real. Another jagged bolt followed it.

"Yes," Loki said, watching her and realizing she'd seen that, "that was him. Congratulations, you've had your little trip to Asgard. But you aren't safe here. Now give me the switch." He held out his hand.

Jane wrapped a hand around the back of her neck and breathed deeply – the air was thick and rich and plentiful here, she realized, and now that her legs had steadied she felt she could walk for miles and miles without tiring. But she could not walk into the war zone Thor was in, apparently restored to good health. And Thor certainly wouldn't want her to. She'd _done_ it, though. She'd made it to Asgard, with a push of a button she'd installed on a piece of equipment SHIELD had helped build and Young-Soo's new lens filter had improved. Jane couldn't wait to see the expression on his face when she told him how she'd used it. What a reference she'd make now! She not only knew people from Asgard, she'd _been_ to Asgard. And she _would _tell him. She didn't care what SHIELD said. She'd been to Asgard. For fifteen minutes. She sighed, unzipped the side right pocket of her jacket, pulled out the RF switch, and handed it to Loki.

"Good," he said, dopping it into his satchel, then took the transmitter from her right wrist and slipped it over his own. "Now come up here."

Jane looked up at him with curiosity and a certain amount of skepticism, but she figured he'd done this before and she hadn't. She followed him toward the giant gold gate with its open double doors in the center, the entire structure towering above them.

"Sit," Loki said, once they'd reached the observatory side of the open gate.

"Why?" she asked, the skepticism growing.

"Must you question _everything _I say?"

Jane bit back a retort and got down first to her knees, then her rear, bending her knees and crossing her ankles. Maybe the trip was easier if you went while sitting. But the structural field generator had been designed to accommodate someone standing, specifically Loki. Before she could voice an objection he was speaking again.

"See this knob?" He crouched down in front of her and pointed; she nodded. It was purely decorative, a raised disc, symbolic of the power and unity of Asgard's royal family, worn by Odin and Thor, once worn by Loki himself, when he'd still thought himself a member of that family. Several of them adorned the gate; this one was a little lower than her shoulder height, in her seated position. "Press your palm against it, and hold your other hand nearby."

Jane narrowed her eyes at him. This was starting to remind her of her late Uncle Jim with his "pull my finger" jokes that he somehow thought were hysterical even long after Jane knew what was coming and only pulled his finger to humor him because he was old and sick. She hesitated just long enough to make sure he knew what she thought of this, but then extended her right arm and put her palm over the circle.

Loki placed his hand close to Jane's and drew his thumb and fingers together. A thin metal band stretched out from the disc, encircling Jane's wrist loosely enough not to pinch, tightly enough not to allow her hand to slip through. In one continuous motion he drew his hands out further and formed a similar band over her left wrist just below the elastic of the structural integrity field generator, connected to the right with a thin but unbreakable chain. He nodded and stood.

Jane couldn't feel what he'd done until he moved his own hands away, and when he did, her eyes went wide and she immediately began tugging at her right hand. "What are you doing? Why did you do that?" she asked frantically, in complete disbelief. She got back onto her knees and began pulling at the metal band with her left hand.

"I have something I need to do, and I don't need you getting in the way. Stop pulling at that. You won't be able to get free. You'll only hurt yourself. Just sit here, relax, and I'll return for you when I'm done."

"Wait!" she called as he turned to walk away and leave her there alone, handcuffed to the gate. "You said it isn't safe. How can you just leave? What if they start fighting here? What if those…Frost Giants or Svartalfheim people come?"

Loki stiffened. "You're used to the cold. You're even dressed for it. You'll be fine."

"Loki, I'm serious, don't do this!" She felt a panic coming over her, remembering how he'd looked when he first came back from Asgard, covered in blood spatter and stab wounds.

"There's nothing to fight for here, all right, Jane? Nothing of strategic value. Nothing of tactical value. Look around you. If you were going to stage a battle, would you do so here, where there's little room to maneuver? No one can see or hear you, so no one will come for you, either. You're in quite possibly the one place in all of Asgard guaranteed to see no fighting. The bridge is useless. Dead, devoid of energy. It didn't look like this before, when it was something worth capturing," he said, lifting his left foot and pressing it down again onto the bridge, which didn't react. "It…" _It used to be beautiful._ He hadn't thought of it that way in a very long time, for he'd long since come to take it for granted, but it was true. The thought made him unexpectedly sad, even mournful, and he took a quick breath to shake it off. These reflections were not helpful for him, and he owed Jane no explanations. He simply did not wish to see her damage herself in a futile attempt to wrest her hand free.

"Calm yourself. Nothing will happen to you. I swear I'll be back for you," Loki said, then grit his teeth and walked away. She called once more for him and he ignored it. And there was no denying it; he felt guilty. Of course she was frightened, alone and trapped in a foreign realm. Like what Brokk had done to him in Svartalfheim. He straightened his shoulders and held his head high. _Not like Brokk. I am not Brokk._ Brokk had trapped him to deposit him on Asgard, to be sent to Jotunheim. He meant no harm to Jane, and had secured her to the gate as much for her own safety as for his convenience, or almost so.

His thoughts continued to lead him down troubling paths as he walked quickly toward the palace. _Brokk wants power, but he doesn't want to rule. He wants it for his own amusement, for his entertainment, for his experiments in expanding his personal abilities._ He could have been describing himself, before he'd discovered the allure of that particular brand of power that came with ruling. _But I was never so cruel._ He almost stumbled in his steps as memories flashed through his mind, one after another, ending on a terrified man with an eyeball he needed. _No_, he thought squeezing his eyes shut briefly as though he were physically seeing instead of simply remembering. He rejected them all, every last one. The mortals were irrelevant. Anyone who'd harmed him, who'd tried, or who'd stood in his way – irrelevant. And the Frost Giants had deserved what they'd gotten and more. He was not Brokk.

_What am I then?_ _Loki of Asgard, _came the answer, the only answer he'd had since that harrowing revelation in the Weapons Vault_._ _But who is that?_ He was not Aesir, the Frost Giants sickened him, he'd failed to rule the mortals, all the Nine sought his capture. He had no home of his own, no name of his own, he had nothing. _You are nothing, _a voice inside him whispered_._ He suddenly found himself burning with so much hatred for Jane that his hands trembled, the kind of hatred he'd previously reserved for Odin, for condemning him to this first ignorant, wasted millennium of his life. Jane had no right to put such thoughts in his head. To make such accusations. To make him question himself. _I should leave her there to rot._

A chill passed over him the second the thought flared up in his mind. He paused and turned back; there was no sign of Jane, restrained and hidden behind the gate, as expected. The guilt came again, stronger this time. He forced himself to resume his progress toward the palace. He would keep his word. Even if he needed to activate his transmitter and make an emergency escape back to Midgard, he would return for her. It wasn't as though it would take much additional effort on his part.

When he reached the foot of the broad onyx stairs that led up to the public entrance to the throne room he hesitated. Just four Einherjar stood watch along the landing at the top of the stairs, twice the usual number but still a flimsy security force if that were the only form of security. Clearly, it was not. Mindful of traps, and without the presence of the tesseract to override his better judgement, he climbed the stairs, passing damaged areas filled with gray stone – from the explosion no doubt – and paused at the top. There was no ruse here. Anyone with an ounce of magical ability would be able to feel the hum of layer upon layer of powerful magic sealing off this so-called public entrance.

The private entrances would be no more accessible. And if he made it past an outer entrance, there would surely be inner layers to these safeguards as well. There would be if _he_ had done it. The thought left a bitter taste in his mouth. For wouldn't this have been his role? Who better to do it? Old Mordi had died, and his daughter Maeva had taken his place, but Loki was at least as powerful as her. She was sly, as evidenced by the trap she'd laid at the wooden observatory, a trait she'd probably learned from him. He knew her, had once known her very well, and he knew her magic. With sufficient time and effort, he and he alone could probably find a way through the complex barriers she created. But not without significant risk, too much risk for him to take at this point, when he was not in peak condition and the gain was uncertain.

Loki turned away and retraced his silent steps down to the street. It was ironic, really. Strange. The one thing he was better at than Thor, the one thing on which he could have staked his position, proven his worth, and he'd been usurped even in this role, utterly replaced by Maeva, who'd never before had any particular status within the palace itself. Even were he to throw himself at the All-Father's feet, beg the king's mercy, proclaim his remorse, sink to his knees in eternal penitence and obeisance, return to this family as its servant, its war bounty…it would make no difference. Every aspect of his existence here had been rendered useless. Meaningless.

There was one place left he could go. One place he was owed something.

/

* * *

/

Loki entered this time without disguise, simply remaining invisible. He shuddered at the shouts of pain coming from behind one closed door as he slipped through the curved main corridor of the Healing Room. By the time an Aesir boy was settled into adulthood he'd been injured so many times in training there was little that could make him carry on so.

Closed doors were his only real challenge now. Luckily there were only three between him and his destination. The first and second, into the vestibule leading to the private wing and into the private wing itself, had glass panels. The vestibule was empty as it had been before, so he pushed the door open and went inside. The corridor beyond, however, was not – two Einherjar stood outside one of the doors on the right. Their presence made him question his plan, but whoever they guarded it was not Jolgeir, whose room was on the left, further down. He tried not to dwell on who it might be.

He waited, and a few minutes later a healer came into the waiting area from the private wing; no one seemed to notice that the door closed more slowly than normal behind her. Eyeing them closely the whole time, Loki made his way down the hallway until he reached Jolgeir's door. The room doors were each set into shallow alcoves, and if he were careful to open it only as much as necessary, it should not be visible to the Einherjar – the ones in the corridor, or the one lying on the bed inside.

"-able to help. But the problem is, we won't really know what needs to be done until we get you home," a woman with shoulder-length brown hair in a light blue gown was saying, standing beside the bed, as Loki crept in, letting the door close soundlessly behind him. A similar-looking girl of about ten years in boyish dark blue with brown leather sat beside Jolgeir, her head resting against his chest, now clothed in a simple white tunic with sleeves cut off. "Last night I tried to pretend I didn't have arms, and I kept forgetting and using them anyway, for all sorts of things."

"We'll figure it out, Sibba. Don't worry about it for now. They want to keep me here for a while anyway. The healers don't have time for home visits."

The girl said something then, but Loki let his mind drift. He'd never had much patience for children, not for a very long time, anyway. Too needy. Too emotional. He waited on the other side of Jolgeir's bed, near the corner, frustrated that he'd had the bad luck to arrive while what were clearly Jolgeir's wife and daughter were here, possibly remaining for hours, even all day.

But only a few minutes later, Jolgeir was sitting up straighter and nudging the girl forward. "I'm feeling tired, Love, why don't you take Dagny and go on home?"

"We can stay, Father. My classes are still cancelled. I don't mind waiting while you sleep. I can be quiet."

"I know you can, Cricket. But I'd feel better about your safety if you went home."

"Twenty homes burned to the ground yesterday. No one is-"

"Sibba."

The woman sighed. "You're right," she said, lifting the girl into her arms. "We'll come back at midday, though. We'll bring you some real food, not the slop they give you here."

Jolgeir laughed quietly and shook his head, then kissed his wife and daughter as they both hugged him in turn. The wife helped the girl down, they said their goodbyes, and they left.

"I do the same, you know?" Jolgeir said once they were gone, startling Loki. "Forget the arms aren't there? All the time. Especially when I want to put my arms around _them_."

"Your vision has improved markedly, Jolgeir. I'm invisible at the moment," Loki said, moving closer until he stood right next to the bed

"My vision is unchanged. The bottom hinge on the door needs to be oiled."

Loki glanced at the door. He hadn't noticed, and he'd been careful. _Always something._ "You know who I am, then?"

"Of course I know who you are. I've known you since your Welcoming."

The Welcoming ceremony was a baby's presentation at one month old to those outside the immediate family; in the royal family's case the presentation was to the entire realm. Loki remembered attending Baldur's and being bored out of his mind. "They held one for me?"

Jolgeir wrinkled his brow. "Yes. Of course they did. For Prince Thor as well. I remember-"

"Do you know _what_ I am?"

"I…I don't understand."

"What I was born."

"You were born…a prince. The day the truce was declared ending the Ice War. A symbol of peace. A better future. I don't know what you want me to say."

"_A symbol of peace." _Loki hadn't thought of that since learning the truth, that he shared his birthday with the end of the Ice War. Of course, who knew when he was really born. That "symbol of peace" drivel was probably made up by Odin as part of his scheme for Loki to somehow unite the realms. He'd heard it all the time when he was younger. _So much for that. _His birth marked the end of the Ice War, then he'd restarted it when his brainless not-brother couldn't ignore an insult, and then when everything changed, with all his might he'd wanted to end it again, permanently and irrevocably.

The chance would present itself again. Loki could wait. In the meantime, he was glad to learn that Jolgeir seemed not to know the truth. "How do the battles go? There are two simultaneously?"

Jolgeir answered, but only after a pause that set Loki on edge. "They continue. Thank you for the information you provided yesterday. It saved lives, and limited the spread of the fires. Do you have anything further to tell me?"

Loki narrowed his eyes. "I didn't come here to give you information. I came here to obtain it."

"Then you've come to the wrong place. I have no position any longer. They don't keep me informed."

"Where do they hold their meetings?"

The pause was longer this time; Jolgeir blinked rapidly. "I don't know. They used to hold them in the throne room, because it was thought secure. What is your purpose here, Lo-"

"Purpose? I told you. To obtain information." Loki was beginning to lose patience. He'd helped Jolgeir, why was Jolgeir finding it such a challenge to return the favor?

"What are you involved in?"

Loki stared at him.

"You can tell me. I'll help you, I swear it. Your family will help. We can get you out of this, whatever it is. Come home, Loki. I meant what I said yesterday. Asgard needs _both_ its princes now."

His breath hitched as comprehension dawned. They thought he was behind all of this. _Jolgeir_ thought he was behind all of this. Involved, at least. _I _helped_ them. Told them where the next attack would be. Gave them the name of a traitor. And I'm repaid with suspicion._ Jolgeir didn't trust him. He'd said he did, yesterday, but he'd lied. No one trusted him. Even if they didn't know what he was. _"Come home, Loki."_ Jolgeir was staring back at him blind and stupid – just as blind and stupid as Thor. Both ready to accept him back, if _he _were willing to be tamed, to be reclaimed as the puppet he'd once been. His bridges here were burned; there was no going back. There was nothing here for him and there never would be. He would never come back as a puppet, and no one here would ever accept him as their king. He would have to rule with an iron fist and mete out terror to hold even his own Einherjar in line.

He pictured Asgard burning. Those homes…twenty homes…Jolgeir's wife had said something about, burned to the ground. He pictured himself standing among the flames. Setting the fires. Burning Asgard. Burning her people. There was a dark allure in it, so dark it unsettled even him. But what then? What would follow? When all of Asgard had burned and there were no more Asgardians left, no more Aesir left, to hate him, to fear him, to distrust him, to see beneath his skin, to rebel against him and threaten to exile him to Jotunheim… He would be alone, with nothing to do but nurse his own hatred. He would rebuild the bifrost, if it took another millennium. He would destroy all the other realms, one by one. He would destroy Thanos. He would destroy the cosmos. He would rule everything and nothing. He would go mad. He would be alone.

"What happened to you, Loki?" Jolgeir's voice was strained.

Loki looked down. In his left hand he held a knife to Jolgeir's neck; a thin line of blood trickled down and stained his white tunic. He'd created it last night from the severed sword blade Jane pulled from his back. He didn't remember taking it from the pouch he'd made for it and attached to the waistband of his pants. "I should take it as a compliment, I suppose. Such faith in my abilities you have. I _am_ skilled at working from the shadows. I learned that from you, much of it. How much of the credit for all this do you think _you_ deserve, then, Jolgeir, hmm?"

"This isn't you."

"You don't know me. No one does." _Odin does. Thor, perhaps. If he could get past his foolish sentiment._ Loki glanced at the black satchel hanging under his arm. He hadn't emptied it. One package of Pop-Tarts remained inside it. He could leave it on the table on the other side of Jolgeir's bed. Thor would get the message, even through his dense skull. _I kept my word._ _I've been with your woman._ He wondered if it would finally send him into a mad enough rage to truly want to kill him. Maybe this was his fate all along, he thought with a twisted snicker. After all, Thor wanted to "finish them all," didn't he? He was one of _them_, therefore Thor wanted to finish _him_. He just hadn't been able to accept it yet, clinging as he did to childhood memories. He slipped his right hand into the bag. Thor was so easy to manipulate; he could drive him to it, beginning with this. Drive him to one final confrontation that only one of them would walk away from.

"I do know you," Jolgeir was saying, and perhaps he'd said something else that had gone unheard, but Loki was through listening. The muscles in his shoulder were working; Loki wondered what his mind was telling him to do with his missing arms – probably fight him off. It was a heady kind of power, this, a life in his hands. Jolgeir was defenseless. He could jerk his body, he could kick, he could try to bite, but any such motion would send the knife into his neck. Loki pulled out the silver-packaged message.

"The door."

The words penetrated slowly; the door was already opening by the time Loki realized what Jolgeir had just said.

* * *

/

_Only partial teasers this go-round: Jolgeir gets another visitor and Loki gets some more disturbing news in what's turning out to be a really bad day for both him and Jane; Jane fears she's been abandoned; Odin has sobering words for Thor._

_And excerpt:_

Jane sat baking on the bifrost. Extreme Cold Weather gear was meant for…extreme cold weather. Not sunny afternoons where the temperature was probably around 70. She wasn't used to such heat anymore, and would have been baking even without being dressed for -100, she thought. She felt like she was swimming in her own sweat, and was grateful at least that she'd braved the short period outside between the jamesway entrance and Pathfinder without her balaclava or hat. _Saved by a moment of vanity._ It seemed silly and childish now, but she hadn't wanted Thor to see her like that, so completely covered up that she was unrecognizable. And in the half second's thought she'd given to it, she'd further justified it with the idea that with her face covered up like a bank robber, if she encountered some random Asgardian before she managed to get all that stuff off, they might shoot first and ask questions later. Or stab first, as the case may be.

_Thanks for reading, thanks for reviewing!_


	54. (53) Change

**Beneath**

**Chapter Fifty-Three – Change**

"Jolgeir, glad to see you're up already. How is your recovery coming along?" a tall broad-shouldered Einherjar with flaming red hair asked as he entered the room, the door swinging closed behind him.

"I still rise early, and I get stronger every day. And you, Huskol? Are you finding your way in my old position?"

While Huskol answered, Loki took note of the fact that Jolgeir had just informed him that this man who was only vaguely familiar was the new Chief Palace Einherjar, and would thus be a particularly formidable opponent if this did not go well.

"What happened here!" Huskol exclaimed, now headed right toward Loki, who backed away, keeping the knife tight in his grip, regretting that if he needed to use it he would have to do so left-handed.

"It's nothing. Sibba was trimming my beard and she nicked me. It just started bleeding again."

Jolgeir sounded a little defensive, and his intonation was a little off – to Loki the lie was evident, but he supposed to Huskol it simply seemed that Jolgeir was embarrassed that his wife had tended to his beard. He watched as Huskol went to the other side of the bed, retrieved some bandages from a drawer, and pressed one to Jolgeir's neck. Loki wasn't concerned; the cut was little more than a scratch, well in line with the lie. He _was_ bothered that he'd done that in the first place, that a rush of power had accompanied it. Jolgeir had done no worse than anyone else, and what use was there in killing someone who lacked any ability to fight back? He could hear Thor lecturing him about fighting with honor, face-to-face, hand-to-hand, worthy opponents and so on and so on. It was easy to fight with honor when you got to make the rules for exactly what that meant. But Loki hadn't worried about honor in a long time, not Thor's version of it, anyway. He could have done worse here; he had shown restraint in the end.

He was more worried about Huskol realizing they weren't alone.

"The queen would like you to join us tonight for a council, if you can."

"I can, with some assistance. But…why me?"

"Because of who came to see you. She wants to see if we can figure out more about Loki's role. And some Dark Elf he's friends with."

Loki's eyes fell shut. _Vigdis. So they've talked to Vigdis, and of course she told them about Brokk. And they know of my connection to him. They may know I was seen on Svartalfheim. You should have kept your mouth shut! _he chastised himself. He'd tried to help, and instead handed over what would appear to be evidence against himself on a silver platter. And now even his mother believed him to be involved in this whole plot.

"Brokk? He's a part of this?"

"That's his name, right."

"Brokk…that doesn't surprise me. He's completely amoral. But Loki…I'm sure he has his reasons for what he's doing. He deserves a chance to speak in his own defense before we jump to conclusions."

Huskol nodded. "And when we capture him, we'll give him every opportunity," he said darkly. "Vigdis is being held a few doors down from here. Her guards are keeping an eye out, in case he shows up back here."

"Mm, I see. Huskol…it's a little warm in here. Could you go prop open the door? Let a little more air circulate?"

"Of course," Huskol said, while Loki stared hard at Jolgeir.

_You've already jumped to conclusions if you think I have any need to defend myself._ Loki couldn't fathom how that could be the case yet Jolgeir was letting him escape, which was clearly what that open door meant. Huskol would have heard the squeaky hinge, too, if Loki tried to get out on his own. He slipped out into the corridor. He wouldn't be coming back.

/

* * *

/

Jane sat baking on the bifrost. Extreme Cold Weather gear was meant for…extreme cold weather. Not sunny afternoons where the temperature was probably around 70. She wasn't used to such heat anymore, and would have been baking even without being dressed for -100, she thought. She felt like she was swimming in her own sweat, and was grateful at least that she'd braved the short period outside between the jamesway entrance and Pathfinder without her balaclava or hat. _Saved by a moment of vanity._ It seemed silly and childish now, but she hadn't wanted Thor to see her like that, so completely covered up that she was unrecognizable. And in the half second's thought she'd given to it, she'd further justified it with the idea that with her face covered up like a bank robber, if she encountered some random Asgardian before she managed to get all that stuff off, they might shoot first and ask questions later. Or stab first, as the case may be.

There were no Asgardians here. There was _nothing_ here. She couldn't even see Asgard, hidden behind the gate she was tethered to. The early morning sky, the bridge beneath her, fast-flowing water leading to the top of a raging waterfall, the bridge, the towering gate itself were all that was visible to her. The steadily rising sun with the darkness of space somehow visible beyond the end of the bridge was something to behold, but she took no pleasure in it. It was only going to get warmer. The sun would rise on her and all of Asgard…and none of Asgard would ever even know they were sharing their sun today with one woman from Earth trapped on their bridge.

Thor was out there fighting, injured but healed. So close, so unbelievably close, laughably close in some ironic sense, yet far enough away to be out of reach, completely ignorant of her presence in his world. Lady Sif and the Warriors Three were out there somewhere too, probably also fighting. Yet even if they just happened to take a walk along Asgard's sidewalk-to-nowhere, as Loki had put it, they wouldn't see or hear her. She was alone. She'd felt that way many times at the South Pole, mostly because of how successfully Loki had isolated her from everyone but him. But here…this gave new meaning to the word "alone." Jane _hated_ feeling alone, had ever since returning to her home for the first time after her parents had been killed.

Time dragged on. She wasn't sure how much time had passed; after her watch battery died she hadn't looked into replacing it. She wondered how long Loki would be gone. _What did he say? "Things to do?"_ He always answered her questions with questions, lies, vagaries, half-truths. He'd never really explained himself about anything. Not truthfully, anyway.

She looked down at her right wrist, and tried again to tug at it. It was sweaty enough, but she couldn't get that metal band over her thumb. _On TV, people break their thumbs to get out of handcuffs._ Jane shuddered. She was going to have to get a lot more desperate before she could even contemplate such a thing.

She got on her knees and crept to her left and then her right as far she could, trying to no avail to see around the gate and the door that was open toward her.

"_I assure you that I can hear you."_ "Loki?" she said out loud, as soon as the thought occurred to her. A minute later she tried again, shouting as loudly as she could. "Come back here!" she added.

Of course he didn't come. "It was worth a try," she grumbled under her breath.

And then a new thought occurred to her: _He took the transmitter._ _What if he doesn't come back?_ Her eyes went wide and the pressure grew on her chest, under thermal underwear, a long-sleeved T-shirt, a flannel button-down, Carhartt overalls, a sweater, and an unzipped Big Red. No one else would ever find her here, if what Loki said was true. If he left her here for good, she would die of dehydration. And it wouldn't even take all that long, she thought, conscious of the pools of sweat dripping off her. Perhaps she wouldn't even last through nightfall. Someday someone would trip over her dead invisible body, but they wouldn't know who she was, and no one on Earth would ever know what had become of her. Erik would never know. He would sicken himself with worry…

She pressed her chest in close to her hands; she began struggling with the buttons on her overalls – they were stiff, for she usually just shrugged into and out of the shoulder straps – and it was very slow going, with her maneuverability limited, particularly in her right hand.

_What if it was all some elaborate trick?_ Tell her Thor was hurt. Convince her it was safe to come here. Shackle her up to die of exposure. The enchantment that protected her wouldn't touch him. Loki wasn't killing her; the heat would eventually do that job for him.

"_I don't need you anymore,"_ he'd told her when he came back from Asgard. So she was expendable. And she'd threatened him.

"_Two words: Sattelite. Phone."_ If Loki wanted to get rid of her, this was the perfect way to do it. He could go back to the station and he would no longer have to worry about anyone revealing who he really was. She worked independently, and hadn't been back on the social scene long enough for her absence at gatherings to be deemed odd.

She looked at her wrist again; she'd only managed to get one button on the Carhartts undone. Thought about those people on TV shows. Gave a tug and didn't stop as the pressure of the band on her bones grew and grew. She squeezed her eyes shut and when the pain suddenly spiked, she released a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding and stopped. She looked at her hand. It was red from the pressure of the gold band and surely soon to be ringed in a motley-colored bruise, but nothing was broken, and her hand still wasn't going anywhere. She gave up on the Carhartts and went to work on the buttons to the flannel underneath.

A drop of sweat managed to get directly in her eye; she winced and rubbed her eyes, then bent to wipe a palm across her brow. With the brush of a slight breeze, she remembered like it was yesterday standing in the cool evening air in Sydney, excited to see the Southern Cross for the first time. Now she gazed out over a sky with a sun, two moons, and swirls of distant galaxies for which she did not even know names. Jane sank back down all the way to the ground and leaned against the gate. _"You're such a dreamer, Jane," _her mother used to say with a smile of fond bemusement. _My dream came true, Mom._

Jane let her eyes flutter closed.

_Wait. What is this?_ Her eyes popped open again. _Giving up, that's what this is._ She heard Erik's voice: _"I'm so proud of you…for never giving up…"_

She looked down at herself – she was wearing so much clothing. It would take her all day to try get out of even some of it, trapped in this awkward position with her hands shackled._ TV people. Right. How bad can it be? They have really good doctors here. I'm sure they can fix broken bones…on an invisible person…_ Jane looked at her hands, held up at shoulder height, yet again. The skin already looked chafed and reddened. She steeled herself for it. This time she would pull as hard as she could, left hand wrapped around right wrist for extra leverage, and not stop no matter how badly it hurt until her hand was free. She closed her eyes again. Looking wouldn't help. She would know she was free when momentum made her fall over backward.

"Let's go."

Jane nodded and started to pull.

"What are you doing? I told you to stop that," Loki said, placing a hand over her wrists and sending the metal of the band back into the disc he'd drawn it from. "You never listen," he added, as Jane looked up at him in shock.

"You came back."

"Of course I came back. Give me your hand. We're leaving."

Jane stared up. He looked distracted. Mildly annoyed, also, but that was nothing unusual. Distracted was unusual.

"Your hand. Now," he said.

It was the voice of someone who was used to giving orders. Less distracted. More annoyed. She held up her left hand, afraid of how much it might hurt if he tried to pull her up by her right. Once on her feet she swayed dangerously, the sunlight dimming for a moment, and both of Loki's hands steadied her arms this time, his right hand gripping the RF switch in between his palm and her suffocating layers of clothing. "I didn't think you were coming back," she said woozily.

"And we've already established that I have. Now hold still." He let go of her experimentally and found she was still unsteady; actually looking at her for the first time he realized she was drenched in sweat and glanced down at what she wore. He should have thought of that, he supposed, but she would be fine. With a little careful balancing he managed to keep her upright and flip the switch, turning the transmitter on for Pathfinder to locate its signal sometime in the next five minutes and bring them back to Midgard. He pulled her close to him, wrapping his arms around her back and looking upward instead of at her so that he didn't have to think too much about what he was doing. Thankfully she seemed too weak to struggle.

"How could you do that to me?" Jane asked, softly, then again, more insistently. She put her hands up between them to push him away. "I thought you left me here to die. I was about to try to break my own hand to get free because I thought I would die here all alone without anyone even knowing where I was or what happened to me. How could you _do_ that to me?"

Even at full strength she couldn't have pushed him away, but as she struggled and squirmed his arms slipped on the fabric of Big Red and she almost managed to pull entirely away from him before he repositioned his arms and pressed her even more tightly against him. "Jane, I obviously didn't leave you here to die. I did exactly what I said I was going to do. Attempting to break your hand was your own foolishness. Now stay still!" he hissed into her ear when she nearly slipped free again. "Do you remember that broken sword protruding from my back? Someone's hand was holding onto the other end of it when Pathfinder brought me back. If you don't stop trying to get away from me, one of us isn't going to make it through in one piece. And it's not going to be me."

It still took a few more seconds, but Loki's words made it through and Jane fell still, sucking in her abdomen, clenching her arms to her sides, and leaning in toward Loki. She hadn't thought about that. They only had one structural field generator tied in to a transmitter, and it was strapped to Loki's wrist now, and programmed to the general shape of Loki's body…not Loki-plus-her.

She closed her eyes and silently prayed. In another minute she could see the flash of light behind her eyelids and felt that terrifying sensation of both motion and non-motion and that moment on a roller coaster when a sudden drop makes your stomach twist in revolt. She fisted her fingers into Loki's shirt and squeezed her eyes more tightly shut.

When she opened them again, the cold hit her physically, and she gasped as a moment of relief quickly turned painful. Loki was asking her if she could walk, but she was too focused on herself to pay much attention. _Is everything still there?_ It was hard to tell. She was covered in sweat and now it was again somewhere around -60 or -70, the moisture on her exposed head and hands beginning to burn as it froze on her skin. "Give me a minute," she managed to get out as she concentrated on each part of her body in turn, checking for movement…checking for existence.

"I'd rather carry you. It's freezing out here." _"You're not dressed warmly enough."_ He'd been dressed a lot more warmly then than in this simple cloth shirt, pants, and shoes that didn't even cover the ankle, and he'd been going to a place not nearly as cold.

"Don't you dare," Jane said, finally stepping away from him and losing the additional warmth he provided with Big Red opened up. She was dizzy and light-headed though, and walking seemed a bit too much to ask of herself yet.

"Come on. I'm not standing around out here," Loki muttered, losing patience. He put an arm around her back and pressed her forward, letting her lean on him as they moved. The quicker he could get her in, the quicker he could get warm, and get this over with.

Jane let herself be led, and was too busy being grateful for the return of his warmth to be upset about being manhandled.

Back inside the rigid-frame jamesway tent Jane immediately pulled away from Loki and collapsed into a chair, letting her head roll backwards as she stared at the struts holding up the "roof." Her hands began to shake and she clasped them together to still them.

Loki took the empty water bottle from yesterday that Jane had apparently left behind after cleaning up the mess his wounds had left behind, and took it back outside, where he filled it with snow piled up beside the building, melted it, added more low-moisture snow, and continued several times until the bottle was full. "Here," he said, setting it on the table in front of her. "Drink it."

Jane gave him a sidelong glance, then lifted her head and picked up the Nalgene bottle. "Did you get this from the snow?"

Loki grit his teeth for a moment before responding, trying to keep his anger under control. "Yes, I did. Is that not sufficient for you?"

"It's not that, it's just…the ice is too pure here. I need to replenish my salts and everything else I sweated out."

_So the answer is yes, it is not sufficient for you._ He remembered this problem – as it was for the mortals, at least – now that she mentioned it. The water here was so pure that they actually added minerals and whatever else – he hadn't paid that much attention – to make it healthy drinking water. That didn't mean he liked having his entirely unnecessary generosity criticized. Then he remembered what was left in his satchel. He pulled out the second package of blueberry Pop-Tarts that he'd never had a chance to leave behind in Jolgeir's room…and probably wouldn't have anyway, once he'd calmed down. "Eat this, then. I'm sure it has plenty of salts and…_things._" He tossed it at her; she flinched but caught it.

She took the water bottle, brought it to her lips, took a sip and couldn't stop. She gulped her way through the whole bottle. Loki stared at her, then the empty bottle, as though she and it had committed some grave affront to him. He swiped it away, went outside for a minute or two, and returned with it full again, while she opened the Pop-Tarts and put the first one away much like Thor had upon his introduction to Pop-Tarts. She made herself take more measured drinks from the refilled bottle while she tried to get her thoughts to settle down.

"Your hood isn't going to do you much good anymore," Loki said another minute later.

"Huh?" Jane asked, her mouth full of sugary goodness, her thoughts still not coalescing.

"Big Red. The hood is missing a bit of fabric."

Jane sat up straight and a second later was peeling herself out of Big Red as fast as she could. Sure enough, a small section of the hood, which must have been sticking out, was cleanly shaved off from the rest of the jacket. Her hand shot to the back of her head, then back around in front of her face when she felt wetness there, but there was no blood, just sweat that had started to freeze in her hair and was now melting.

"Are you well now?"

"I…I guess so. Yeah. Better." No longer worried about the back of her head being shaved off, she looked at her hand itself. An ugly purple bruise had appeared where the raw skin circled her hand, at its worst around her thumb joint.

Loki saw her hand, too, and looked at it with resentment. _I should leave that to heal in its own slothful mortal time. "I tried to break my own hand."_ He rolled his eyes. It wasn't like he'd left her there that long, no more than a couple of hours. Still…it was almost as though she were holding that hand up deliberately, accusing him of something. "Fine," he grumbled, placing his hand over hers, not quite touching.

Jane was startled, but quickly remembered how he'd healed her neck and the frostburn on this same hand. When he took his hand away the chafing and bruising were gone, and when she tentatively touched her thumb joint it gave only the slightest twinge. "Are you a doctor?" she suddenly asked.

He frowned. "Healer. And no."

"Same thing," Jane muttered under her breath.

"Hardly."

"Whatever."

"I'm going back to the station. And please don't take any other unannounced trips to other realms. I won't be there next time."

"I don't… Loki, wait. Wait," she repeated, standing up and hurrying toward him when he didn't stop.

Hand on the doorknob, Loki finally paused and turned. "I need to think, Jane. I need to…I just need to think."

"But, just…wait…why…why were you there _this _time?" Jane asked, the fall that would have killed her, which she'd completely forgotten in the amazement of being on Asgard and then the fear of a lonely slow death on Asgard, suddenly coming back to her, though even now only in little flashes. Sitting there on the bridge, abandoned, she'd thought Loki wanted her dead. But that couldn't possibly be true, she realized now, thinking more clearly. If he'd wanted her dead, all he had to do was let her keep falling, instead of coating her in dust from a thousand-year-old net. Of course, if he _had_ made her disappear forever, literally, or let her fall to her death, her absence would be noticed eventually, whether from a missed fire drill, or shirked house mouse and dish pit duty. And that would have drawn SHIELD's attention. Still, he would probably have found a way out of that, like he did everything else. So… "Why did you save me?"

"You went there because of me. Because of what I said," Loki answered after a long moment. The answer didn't come easily, and he wasn't sure if it was the truth or not. He wasn't sure _why_ he'd done it. He hadn't deliberated over it, he'd just done it. But of course Jane wanted to know _why_. Always _why_ and _how_ with her. "Although that was incredibly stupid of you," he couldn't help adding.

"I _did_ ask you about it. You made it sound like everything was safe. But you knew it wasn't. Because the same thing happened to you, didn't it? You never mentioned that Yggdrasil didn't set you down over solid ground."

"Mmmm. Didn't I? That sounds familiar. Let me think…ah, yes. It reminds me of the time someone failed to tell me Asgard might be at war with Svartalfheim."

Jane grimaced. "I _said_ I was sorry about that. I really didn't think it would matter that much at the time. It was just people talking. It wasn't war. And I…I didn't want it to stop you from leaving." _There, I said it. The selfish, ugly truth._

Loki barely noticed. "Well, it _is_ war now. I _went_ to Svartalfheim, by the way."

"You uh…you what? You…why did you do that? _How_ did you do that? You were supposed to go to Asgard."

"I do what I want, Jane. I don't have to explain myself to you. But I risked my neck there because you lied to me," Loki said, his voice rising in the end as memories flashed through his mind – guards at the "secret" gateway to Svartalfheim, a pit lined with blades on the Svartalfheim side, Brokk and his blue candles and The Other and the yellow candles and the over-enchanted dagger and being chased out of a tavern as he learned of the war for the first time.

"I told you I'm sorry, and I am. I really, really am, Loki. If I could have it to do over again, I wouldn't keep it from you. But don't go trying to get on any moral high ground with me about lying, okay? And I _didn't know_ there was a war. But you, you _knew_ the danger. You knew exactly what would happen if I used Pathfinder, and you knew that eventually I would use it, you had to know that. Once I knew it was safe, once your return _told_ me it was safe, of course I would use it. We even _talked _about it, about who would try it out first, when I still thought you were Lucas, when you were still lying to me about that. And then you told me something…what, just to hurt me? You told me something that made me want to go right then and there. I was afraid I would never see Thor again."

"I didn't expect you to immediately go racing out here like some lovesick youth. How was I supposed to know you'd be so reckless?"

"And I didn't expect you to go to Svartalfheim. You told me you were going to Asgard. You told me you were going to see your family. How was _I_ supposed to know you lied about your interstellar travel plans?"

"You are the most infuriating-" Loki stopped as the doorknob broke off in his hand. "Mortal construction," he scoffed. _Nets probably crumble away in a week here._ "Have it your way, Jane. I don't care what you think. Call it even, call yourself the victor, or the victim, whatever you like. Just leave me be." He turned and bent over the hole where the doorknob had been to try to reattach it.

Whatever further argument had been on her tongue died away as Jane watched Loki with a frown. _Who was _that_?_ she asked herself. Because it didn't sound like Loki. Or Lucas. She couldn't put her finger on what it was exactly, but it bothered her. Something was wrong. With _him_. And suddenly she felt guilty. Not about Svartalfheim. At least, not more than she already did. She felt guilty because putting aside everything else, he _had_ saved her life. And he may have caused the dehydration in the first place, but he'd physically supported her afterward, made sure she got back to Earth whole, given her food and water, and healed the damage to her hand. And all she'd done was argue with him. Not that he didn't- _No. Get over it, Jane. It may make your skin crawl, but…_

"Loki…," she began, just as he got the doorknob back on. "Thank you." The words left a slightly bad taste in her mouth, but not nearly as much as she'd thought when she decided to finally say them.

"For what?" he asked, straightening up and looking at her in confusion.

"Look…whatever else happened, happened. But if you hadn't come after me today, I'd be dead right now. So thank you."

Loki stared hard at her, thinking there must be some sarcasm or taunt in her words, but he couldn't find it. And with Jane one didn't need to look too deeply. Her feelings were close to the surface; her attempts at trickery and deceit were laughably transparent. He'd tried to kill Thor right in front of her, conquer her planet, cut her off from everyone around her, even to strangle her – though he hadn't meant to do that, he reminded himself – and she was thanking him. _I _did _save her life._ _She _should_ be grateful._ But those words didn't sit right, even as they ran through his head. He averted his eyes. There were polite words one should say when one was thanked. His mother…_Frigga_, his mind supplied, had taught them to him well. Frigga, who now thought he was behind this alliance against Asgard. He refused to say any of them. "If you're done," he finally responded, "I'll be going back to the station now."

Jane didn't try to stop him again, though it wasn't out of fear he would assault her. He might hurt doorknobs, but he wouldn't hurt _her_. Not intentionally, at least, she caveated, thinking of what she'd just endured on the bridge, what her muscles still felt weak from. _Maybe he didn't realize how dangerous that was for me…maybe it wouldn't be dangerous at all for him._ _Maybe he just didn't think._ Whatever had or hadn't gone through his mind when he cuffed her to the gate in her ECW gear and left her there, she was sure he hadn't meant to put her at risk. And it had nothing to do with the enchantment, either. Loki hadn't pushed her when she fell, and he hadn't overheated her using some kind of magic like when he'd warmed her hand that time it had become frostbitten. She'd never thanked him for that, either, she remembered, she hadn't been willing to. But he'd had no obligation to treat her hand back then; he hadn't directly caused that damage, not like the damage to her throat.

He was capable of such violence. Such rage. There was more to him than that, though. She'd seen glimpses of it before, particularly in the way he spoke of his mother – she couldn't remember him ever looking genuinely happy except when he'd talked about her that one time. _"She always made time for me," _she remembered him saying. Smug, condescending, joking though never in a particularly mirthful way…but not truly happy, not truly content. Being sent back for some kind of still-not-clearly-explained punishment on the same realm where you'd just been soundly defeated wouldn't tend to make a person full of joy and light, she supposed, but still…all that anger with nothing good to balance it out had to be as corrosive as acid.

_And I didn't help. Ohhh, I didn't help,_ Jane thought with a grimace as she made her way back to the table and sat down to get off of legs that had grown a little shaky again. She'd tried a few times, when she still thought he was Lucas, when she'd decided he probably needed a friend. But once she knew the truth…she'd told herself she was helping. Helping him to learn a lesson, to learn _something_ from his period of "punishment" on Earth. But she hadn't wanted to help him at all. She was angry at him. For what he'd done to Erik. To Thor. To innocent people in places from Europe to the States. To _her_. But it wasn't about helping him. She'd wanted to hurt him. She'd seen a snake with a rattling tail and picked up a stick and poked. Then poked again, and again. And he'd bitten.

Jane still didn't understand who or what Loki really was, but he wasn't a puppy to be housebroken by rubbing his nose in the wrongs he'd done, no matter the scale of those wrongs. She didn't understand him…but she decided she was going to try, and she knew she would have to find a new way to do it.

/

* * *

/

Thor slogged his way through the morass of the remnants of the battle. There was no more fighting per se, but there was so much uncoordinated motion, so much shouting, that it almost felt as though battle still raged. Fresh Einherjar arrived to man the wall and secure masses of prisoners, older youths dragged bodies away, tired Einherjar and civilian warriors – many of whom had been fighting since the beginning of this attack, a little over two full days ago – assisted the youths or helped injured fellows back toward the city or to horse-drawn carts that would get the most severely injured more quickly to the Healing Room. Thor stopped to help a few along the way, but otherwise continued on, choosing his steps carefully for the ground was littered with gruesome things. He had been summoned to the Feasting Hall.

"Father," he greeted, when he reached Odin's position atop a slight incline. Odin sat astride Sleipnir, Gungnir in his right hand and the reins in his left, his posture straight as a rod.

"Thor," Odin said in return, giving a small nod.

They regarded each other in silence for a moment, Thor feeling as though he should say something, as though there were things that _needed_ saying, but all he could do was look up at his father.

Odin extended a hand down; Thor looked at the hand, then back up at Odin in question.

"Ride with me," he said.

Thor nodded and slipped a foot into the stirrup Odin had vacated, then pushed his way up while his father pulled. He settled himself, released the stirrup, and held on to the cantle at the back of the saddle as Odin got them off to a slow trot.

"You fought well," Odin said.

"Thank you," Thor said, though again it didn't seem enough. He was somewhat distracted by Sleipnir's odd eight-legged gait. He hadn't ridden his father's horse since his youth, when both of them fit on the saddle and Odin would hold him in front. There was something profound here, he thought, but his senses felt strangely deadened, his mind dulled.

"Difficult decisions lie ahead, my son. Some of them may fall to you."

"Must you sleep already, Father?" Thor asked, suddenly worried, and wishing he could see more than his father's back. He had last woken from the Odinsleep less than two months ago.

"No, not yet. But I cannot keep this up indefinitely. We have put an end to this attack, more quickly than expected I suspect, but more will come. I need to know that you can put Asgard first, Thor. No matter how much it pains you personally."

"I can," he answered automatically. _Have I not already publicly pledged such, when I was to be proclaimed king?_ "I will," he added.

"Even if it requires great sacrifice."

"Even then," he said, remembering how he'd destroyed the bifrost, knowing it could not be easily rebuilt, knowing it may never be rebuilt in Jane's lifetime, knowing that Loki's threat could prove true – _"If you destroy the bridge, you'll never see her again!"_ And then he understood, as the adrenaline and battle lust still coursing through his veins first began to yield to a wave of exhaustion. _Loki_.

"_Thor Odinson, do you swear to guard the Nine Realms?"_

"_I swear."_

"_Do you swear to preserve the peace?"_

"_I swear."_

"_Do you swear to cast aside all selfish ambition and pledge yourself only to the good of all the Realms?"_

"_I swear!"_

He had not taken the throne, but that did not invalidate the oaths he'd made. Oaths he would still make today, and would have made at any point in his life since he was old enough to understand them. But he'd also made an oath to Loki.

"_I swear to you, Loki Odinson, I won't let them send you to Jotunheim."_

_Is that what he's getting at? That I must put Asgard before Loki? But _Loki_ is part of the Nine Realms, too. Loki is part of _me_. Does my oath to guard the Nine Realms not apply also to Loki?_ He couldn't stem the tide of bitterness that rose up in him, recalling that Loki had betrayed _him_ time and again, most recently through his intent to make good on his threat to seek out Jane. _Are my oaths in conflict? To keep one, must I break another?_

Thor felt a hand pat the side of his knee and looked up; they'd arrived at the palace while Thor was lost in thought. He quickly dismounted, and Odin followed, while a guard ran forward to secure Sleipnir until a servant could return the black steed to the stables.

"Go to the meeting your mother has called," Odin instructed.

"You aren't coming, too?"

Odin gave a small regretful smile. "This council would take more out of me than I could bear at the moment, Son. I'll ask for a report on it once I've rested."

Thor nodded and watched him go, around to the right where the private entrance was. He wondered what Odin knew about this meeting that he didn't. A feeling of unease settled over him as his father disappeared around the corner. He straightened his back and pressed forward, into the public area of the palace, toward the Feasting Hall.

* * *

/

_Dear guest reviewer whose review didn't ever show up on the "Reviews" page - I got one review that just said the default "Type your review here" thing last time, technical glitch I imagine. I deleted it. Wanted to let you know in case you typed something up and thought I didn't "like" it or something. I've never deleted a review otherwise._

_**Story Q&A**: I have a bit of extra space this time, so I wanted to answer "Jaquelinelittle's" questions here, those that weren't already addressed in this chapter (some of you do sometimes make me think you've managed to read my files!) - good questions (as usual), and several others had these same ones so I presume they're on a number of readers' minds. (1) Could Heimdall have seen Jane when she was falling before Loki made it Asgard? YES. However, he's also very busy, and in this take on things he doesn't see all things all at the same time, so while he could have seen her, he might not have. If they're far enough apart at the Pole, also, he could see her, say, if Loki's at the station and Jane's at the Dark Sector Lab. The former would of course be a red flag, while the latter would not. (2) Did Thor try to kill Loki after Loki tricked him into falling (re the flashback)? YES (or, well, who knows how far he would have gone had his friends not stopped him). If I get around to writing it, this will be covered in my story _Eighteen_; the flashback scene is not long after the end of Loki's punishment for killing Baldur. Thor did not know at the time that Loki had a net in place, and genuinely believed Loki had tried to kill him. The Baldur story will be covered, some aspects of it anyway. (3) Did Loki intend to kill Jolgeir? NO. Well...not really. He just really snapped for a moment. And the message to Thor would have been through the Pop-Tarts, not through Jolgeir's dead body. Still, a mental ward and a straightjacket _might_ not be such a bad idea. Also, earlier "melluky" asked "Why does Loki blame Jane?" Basically Loki is not into personal responsibility at this point in his life. When things go wrong, it can't possibly be because he is making terrible decisions and doing harmful things. And while he _kind of_ has a __point here (covered this chapter), in reality he still would have gone to Brokk had he known of the possibility of war with Svartalfheim; it would have changed little, though he would have been a bit more cautious. (Feel free to ask questions, everyone. I usually cannot answer them from non-registered users, though.)_

_**Teasers **from Ch. 54, probably titled "Evidence": Frigga and Thor hear the evidence of Loki's presence off of Midgard, and everyone - probably including readers, though many of you are phenomenally astute - learns at least one thing he or she didn't know before; Jane tries to think about Loki in a new way._

_**Excerpt **(this is Frigga and Thor):_

"[...] We have new information on who may be behind all of this…and that your brother may play some role in it."

"Loki?" Thor asked confused. It seemed more likely that there was some other brother out there he didn't know about than that Loki could be involved in _anything_ at this point; he hadn't even been seen or heard from on Midgard since the first two days he'd been there.


	55. (54) Evidence

**Beneath**

**Chapter Fifty-Four – Evidence**

Frigga was waiting for him at the entrance to the Feasting Hall, her gaze falling on him, giving him a practiced inspection for injury – there were only a few scratches and small cuts and minor burns, nothing that warranted a visit to the Healing Room – then looking expectantly beyond him. Her relief turned to a frown, for no one followed him.

"He is resting," Thor said as soon as he reached her.

She nodded, took his hand, kissed his forehead.

He fought not to pull away from her, both because he felt somewhat uncomfortable being kissed by his mother in what was – or what had once been – a public place, and especially because he knew what was on his forehead after days of fighting and killing. It reassured her, though, he supposed, so he let her do it, and squeezed her hand back in return.

"He isn't coming to this council, then?"

"No. He said…he said it would be more than he could bear. He's concerned about needing the Odinsleep again already. But…he was there, he already knows the losses we took. Is there something else?"

"There is. We have new information on who may be behind all of this…and that your brother may play some role in it."

"Loki?" Thor asked confused. It seemed more likely that there was some other brother out there he didn't know about than that Loki could be involved in _anything_ at this point; he hadn't even been seen or heard from on Midgard since the first two days he'd been there.

"Come. There's no point in you hearing it twice. We're almost ready to begin, but I wanted to wait for you and your father."

Thor nodded and entered the Feasting Hall at her side. At the long table sat Hogun, three uniformed Einherjar he didn't recognize, a nervous-looking young man who looked vaguely familiar, another unfamiliar man in a simple laced-up tunic, Maeva, who had become a regular attendee since planning for Asgard's defense had begun, and Bragi. It was a strange council. Small, certainly for what was surely a matter of great importance, and full of unexpected people while lacking expected ones. Bragi certainly was present for nearly all councils, and Hogun was sometimes in attendance, but when he was, it was almost always with Volstagg and Fandral, and often with Sif as well. First Einherjar Hergils, who had been leading Einherjar warriors in and around the forest, was just sitting down beside Maeva, his face darker than usual with soot.

He looked around the hall itself and realized why it felt empty; no guards were positioned along the walls and no servants hovered with plates and pitchers.

Those present were oriented around the end of the table where Odin sat. His chair and those to its left and right were empty.

"Do you wish to lead the council?" Frigga asked quietly just before they reached the table.

"If you wish it I will, but I know little of the subject, and truthfully…I was hoping for some sustenance."

"Sustenance you shall have. But do not set your hopes too high," she answered with a light smile.

Thor gave her a curious look, but he took his customary spot to the right of the head chair in silence, nodding to the greetings of several of those seated, while Frigga took the head chair itself.

"You may begin dinner service now!" Frigga called – loudly.

Thor, who'd been about to ask Hogun how he was doing, looked up at her in shock. He thought that if perhaps he were not quite so tired, then all of this would make perfect sense.

Four Einherjar then filed out of the kitchen, three carrying black kettles, the fourth carrying two pitchers. Thor watched as Asgard's elite professional warriors and guard force reached the table. One filled his glass with red wine – he was too tired and his stomach too empty for the mead he would normally take. The others first retrieved bowls from a nearby serving cart, then one placed a bowl before him and ladled stew from the kettle into it, splattering some of the liquid onto his already filthy armor.

"My apologies, Prince Thor," the man said, continuing to serve him the stew.

Thor laughed at the strange symmetry of it – the last time he'd been in this room, before the second round of battles, he'd had mead spilled on him. "At least you aren't likely to run away crying over it. But I do suggest you not abandon your position for one in the kitchen."

The Einherjar serving him smiled and nodded, then moved on to Bragi, seated next to him. When Thor looked around the table, expecting to share a laugh, no one was laughing, and around half avoided his eyes.

"What's going on?" he asked, searching the faces of those he knew.

"Eat, Thor," his mother said. "We're still waiting on two more. We'll discuss it once they arrive."

Thor looked around once more, found no answers, shrugged, and dipped his spoon into the bowl. There was an odd burnt smell, he realized as he lifted the spoon, found also in the taste. Potato chunks dissolved into mush in his mouth, the carrots crunched like raw between his teeth. Thor ate it with a smile, fondly recalling the many field-cooked meals he'd shared with Loki and his friends over the centuries. Then he looked up at his mother again. _Why are we eating field-cooked meals in the palace?_ There was no doubt in his mind these Einherjar had not only served the meal, they'd prepared it. Frigga merely crunched down on a carrot – he could hear her do it – and tightly smiled, so Thor went back to his stew.

The Einherjar finished serving and set the kettles down on the far end of the table, then two scurried back to the kitchen and returned with rectangular loaves of dark bread. One of them drew a dagger from a leather sheath on his forearm – Frigga opened her mouth to object but was too late – and made quick clean slices through the bread. Thor caught Hogun's eye and chuckled. He supposed an explanation would come eventually, but in the meantime this was certainly a more entertaining meal than he'd expected, and it helped to distract him from the carnage he'd just come from and the prisoners so numerous no one yet knew what to do with them all and the worry that at any moment another portal could open and another mass of fresh warriors could pour through.

"Here they are," Frigga said, just as Thor signaled for seconds on the stew.

He looked up to see Chief Palace Einherjar Huskol walking in with another man Thor didn't recognize, dark haired and with a slow and slightly odd gait, his arms behind him as though a prisoner in shackles. He watched in curiosity as the two approached, thinking this prisoner must be the reason the council had been called. The prisoner, Thor quickly realized, was Jolgeir, and for a split second Thor thought perhaps he'd been badly injured and was actually lying in the Healing Room dreaming all of this absurdity. He soon recognized, however, that Jolgeir was of course not a prisoner – the long sleeves of his yellow tunic were empty, and fastened somehow behind him. _"Seriously injured," _another Einherjar had told him. _"Rumors that he's lost the use of his arms."_ Thor remembered being relieved to hear it, thinking Jolgeir's arms would heal in time. He stared, unblinking, as Huskol stayed by his predecessor's side and pulled out a chair for Jolgeir, directly across from him, helped steady him as he sat, then pushed the chair forward. Huskol then nudged the Einherjar in the seat to Jolgeir's left; he took his bowl and glass and moved to the end of the table and Huskol took the vacated spot.

"Would you like some stew?" one of the Einherjar-turned-servers asked, bringing a kettle to stand near the former and current Chief Palace Einherjar, while another man brought the pitchers.

"I've eaten already, thank you," Jolgeir said, as Huskol nodded.

It was only then, in the way that Jolgeir did not quite meet the eyes of the person who'd spoken to him, that Thor realized that he'd lost his sight as well as his arms.

"Are you sure?" Huskol asked. "It would be my honor to assist you."

Jolgeir thanked him but declined.

"It's a good thing you've eaten, Jolgeir," Thor said, trying to get past his shock. "Your own men cooked it, and they splash it on you when they fill your bowl."

"We'll consider this part of their training regimen, then. It's only a shame that they must practice on our queen and prince."

"The queen is not complaining, and the prince knows well he could do no better. Now," Frigga said, turning her attention from Jolgeir and Thor to the table at large, "since we are all here, let us begin. Please continue to eat as you like. Bragi?"

Next to Thor, Bragi stood. "We will first hear from Fridulf Hjalmarson, healer in training, so that he may return to his duties once he has spoken. Otherwise, we shall hear reports in chronological order."

Fridulf – whose name Thor instantly recognized as the discontented nineteen-year-old who'd tended to him – pushed his chair back to stand, but Bragi motioned for him to keep his seat. He reminded the nervous youth that this was informal, and that he should simply state what he'd observed. Thor watched and listened with interest, his second bowl of stew forgotten, his spoon still in his hand.

"Well, it was yesterday. Early afternoon, I think. I saw a man take a Healing Stone and break it over his injury. It looked like a simple stab wound, but it didn't heal. So it made me curious. He said it was caused by an enchanted dagger. When I tried to heal it, I could tell there was some kind of magic there, and removing it was really hard. Actually, I didn't think I could do it at all, but he encouraged me to try, and…he sort of told me how to think about it. I worked on it for a long time, and I made a little progress, but then I got called away. And that's it. I didn't see him again after that."

"Describe him, please," Bragi said, and Fridulf did: tall, slender, curly blond hair, beard.

Any number of men on Asgard fit that description, but it sounded like no one in particular Thor knew. "Is this a new type of weapon we're facing?"

"We haven't seen any other cases like it, my prince," the boy said, straightening his posture.

"How was his health otherwise?" Frigga asked. "Did this wound cause him much pain?"

"He didn't show it, but he wasn't moving his arm. It caused a lot of damage to the shoulder muscles. But otherwise his health appeared fine."

"Any other questions?" Bragi asked a moment later.

Thor had a dozen, but he assumed he was more in the dark than anyone else here, and he also understood that the real reason Fridulf had been asked to speak first was because he did not need to be privy to whatever discussion would follow. If there were other appropriate questions to be asked, someone else at the table who knew what all this was about could ask them. He glanced at his mother; the worry lines in her forehead were showing and her lips were slightly parted. She, too, he recognized, had questions she wasn't asking. Thor wondered what hers were.

Frigga listened as Huskol asked Fridulf if he'd seen the blond man speaking with anyone and Fridulf said he had not, and then it appeared there were no more questions. She didn't want him to go. She wanted to embrace him. To touch the hand that had touched Loki's shoulder. To press him for more details on how bad the wound was, on whether Loki looked tired, whether he looked sad, or angry. He'd encouraged this boy. _Isn't that a good sign?_ _Isn't it evidence of the good still in him?_ she thought. Frigga steadied her escalating emotions as Fridulf stood to leave but then turned back to face Thor.

"Thank you, Prince Thor, for what you said to me the other day. I haven't forgotten it."

Thor nodded; Fridulf bowed to him and the queen and left.

"For those who are just catching up," Bragi began with a pointed look at Thor, "that man with the strange wound was Loki."

Thor dropped his spoon into his bowl, sending another splatter onto his armor. "Because the wound had magic in it that resisted healing? Loki can't be on Asgard. He's on Midgard. He has no way to get here."

Bragi shook his head. "We know that Loki knows additional passageways between the realms unfamiliar to anyone else; he even confessed as much to Heimdall. And though we thought it unlikely because of Midgard's distance to us through Yggdrasil, clearly he has found a passageway here. That or he's located some other powerful relic on Midgard."

"I will ask Odin, but no other such relics are known to me," Frigga said.

"So Loki…you're saying Loki is here. And injured. And he went to the Healing Room, right down the street from here, for treatment." _This is impossible. They're frightened, and Loki is an easy target._

"There's much more, Thor. Just listen for now."

He looked at his mother for a moment and found her face smooth and expressionless. He nodded.

And so it began.

The two Einherjar who'd seen – or not seen, in fact – someone make use of the newly sealed and guarded gateway to Svartalfheim. Someone who'd fought well, incapacitating a trained Einherjar and relieving him of his sword in the space of a couple of seconds. Someone skilled in magic, making himself invisible, dissolving a heavy stone into silt, and opening the magic stone behind it. Someone who knew this gateway existed in the first place, and had gone immediately for the passage at the back of the cave.

Denial could be powerful, but Thor knew from this evidence alone that no matter how strongly he believed Loki had to be on Midgard, he had in fact made it back to Asgard, and then to Svartalfheim. Until recently, only a tiny handful of people had known that gateway even existed. Jolgeir, he now knew, was one of those who'd known all along, having followed him and Loki through it in secret on their early adventures there.

No one knew what Loki had done on Svartalfheim, but next spoke Dantral Ferison, one of Bragi's secret envoys, the man in the laced-up brown tunic. While pretending to be Vanir and doing his best to spread dissent on Svartalfheim over the attack on unarmed civilians in Asgard's throne room, he'd encountered a man who turned out to be indisputably Loki, entirely undisguised except for uncharacteristically mussed-up hair and unadorned clothing. "He said he was disgusted that women had been killed, and he asked about Prince Thor and the All-Father. Then I turned and we saw each other, and he recognized me. Or at least, he knew I wasn't who I was claiming to be. I was worried he would expose me, but he only wanted to leave. Then a child came in announcing that there was an Asgardian intruder in the area. This intruder had killed a Svartalf warrior. I never heard who, or why. Loki threw the little boy aside and escaped before others in the tavern could capture him."

"Was the boy hurt?" Frigga asked immediately. She'd been heartened to hear Loki had asked after Odin and Thor, but then to harm a child…

"A few bruises, I'm sure, otherwise, no. I didn't stay long after that, for my own safety and because I knew I would need to get to a place where I could call for Heimdall to bring me back so I could inform you. I…quite honestly, I was beginning to believe I'd been imagining things until I got here and realized there had been other sightings of him."

Dantral, more trusted than the unknown young healer Fridulf but still with no need to be part of further discussions, was dismissed.

The next to see Loki was Fridulf, whose testimony they'd already heard, and Bragi spoke for another healer who'd afterward interacted with Loki less, and had simply led him – reluctantly, she had noted – to the private wing so Eir could examine his wound. This detail meant little to Thor, but Frigga knew why Loki had been reluctant. Having been his personal healer for over a millennium, Eir would probably recognize Loki through any disguise, and Loki knew it. He hadn't wanted to be discovered, and he hadn't sought out Jolgeir. And that meant, as Jolgeir had said he suspected, Loki had never intended to pass on those warnings to him.

At Bragi's direction, Jolgeir – who needed no introduction before this group – related his tale next, how he'd known his "healer" was Loki by his words and the way he'd said them, how Loki had been surprised at his condition but seemed to have known about the explosion, how he'd asked whether the queen had been hurt, how he'd tried to tell Loki that Asgard needed him – Thor noted several reactions to this, none of them quite favorable – how Loki had made to leave but seemingly as an afterthought had warned him of the danger to the Felingard Forest and given him the name of a palace servant, Vigdis.

"What was his demeanor?" Thor asked. Like his mother, he remembered that Loki had once felt a special fondness for Jolgeir; he recalled his younger brother as a child getting into trouble for distracting him from his duties, wanting Jolgeir to play with them or bringing books for Jolgeir to read him. "Was he friendly with you? Or…" It wasn't that Thor couldn't think of any words to say. He didn't wish to speak aloud any of the words that came to mind.

"He was…he was Loki. A little distant. Guarded. Careful to hide whatever he was really thinking and feeling."

"He didn't threaten you in any way?" Hergils asked from the far end of the table.

"No," Jolgeir said immediately. But then a shadow passed over his face. "Not then."

"Jolgeir," Frigga began, hesitating, already getting the sense she wouldn't want to hear what Jolgeir said next. "You've seen him since then? Since yesterday afternoon?"

"I have, Your Majesty. Very early this morning. He was there when you entered, Huskol."

"_What?!_" Huskol shouted. "I saw no one. Why didn't you say something? He…he'd made himself invisible? That little-" Huskol glanced at the queen and did not finish his sentence. "He was threatening you then?"

"Perhaps I should continue my story after we hear from the others. I know Hogun saw him."

"I did," Hogun said, speaking up for the first time. "He was leaving the private wing as I was entering. He appeared as Jolgeir described him. I questioned his presence there, and he became…confrontational. But his challenge was only with words. Though I did not recognize him at the time, I have no doubt now that this was Loki."

_Confrontational,_ Thor thought. The new Loki, then, rather than the old, who avoided confrontation, whose temper rarely got the best of him, and who was unfailingly polite, even while turning your wine into writhing snakes or your hair into the same. _Was it all a mask?_ he wondered. _Did his politeness hide anger? Was there more behind his little tricks than a desire for a clever jest? _He recalled the last real moment of levity he'd shared with his brother. He'd been poking fun at Loki for his use of subterfuge instead of weaponry when they'd ran into a problem in Nornheim, and that servant had chuckled. _But I always did that. Just a little teasing between brothers. He made fun of my helmet, and I made fun of his, just as we have for a thousand years. I made fun of his trickery, and he was always calling me a fool or an idiot. Where's the harm?_ _Surely he was not actually bothered by such things._ Thor thought back, eyes narrowed as he tried to remember what grew more distant with each passing day. It _had_ sometimes gotten on his nerves when Loki called him stupid. More so when he was younger, less self-confident. A few times he'd gotten so angry he and Loki had brawled over it. But Loki had never started fights over a bit of teasing. The very idea of Loki starting a fight – until recently – was almost unheard of, and Thor had teased him for that, too, though Loki had been known to finish fights started by someone else.

"What?" Thor suddenly blurted out. He hadn't been listening, and Huskol had just mentioned something about the tesseract. Snatches of the words he'd just said came back. "Loki tried to steal the tesseract?"

Tyr strode in, then, looking as filthy as Thor, for although he was supposed to be serving solely as a war strategist, he had jumped in to help turn the tide of the most recent battle.

"There's no way to be 100% certain it was him," Huskol explained, "but given that we know he was in the immediate vicinity right before the attempted theft, and given that we know he is able to make himself invisible and that he used this trick while attacking the Einherjar guarding the gateway to Svartalfheim, it's the only reasonable assumption."

Huskol went back and repeated the account put together from the Einherjar guarding the empty observatory, while Tyr took the seat vacated by the trainee healer Fridulf, and Geirmund arrived, first hovering near Bragi, then taking Dantral's empty seat.

Thor let his head fall back and ran a hand through his hair. He stole a glance at his mother, who was steadfastly looking only at Huskol as he spoke. She wasn't hearing these details for the first time, Thor knew, for she didn't react when Huskol related how Loki had stabbed several Einherjar and had himself been stabbed, and had seemed to vanish from the building in a blinding flash of light, taking half of a sword with him, presumably _in_ him.

"This was the last sighting. Or so I had thought," Huskol finished, looking to Jolgeir.

"He came at dawn, invisible, when my wife and daughter were visiting. He said nothing until they left. He asked strange questions. If I knew who he was. If I knew _what_ he was."

Thor and Frigga exchanged a quick look; they alone at this table knew what Loki had been asking.

Jolgeir smoothly and professionally summarized the rest of the brief conversation, up to his offer of aid, before pausing for a moment. "He grew quiet then, and I waited for him to say something, but…he still said nothing, and I felt a blade at my throat."

Gasps and quiet exclamations sounded from around the table. Frigga stared at him, her hand over her mouth in shock and horror.

"You told me your wife nicked you while trimming your beard."

"He was in the room, Huskol. He was clearly upset about something. I didn't want to do anything to provoke him."

"You asked me to open the door-"

"Yes. So he could leave."

"So he could escape," Huskol corrected.

Jolgeir inclined his head. "I wasn't aware he was currently under arrest."

"He isn't," Frigga said. "You did nothing wrong, Jolgeir. I'm grateful you were able to speak with him. If he comes to you again, tell him I wish to speak with him myself. And that I will guarantee him amnesty if he does so."

"My queen, amnesty? Loki is _clearly_ involved in this," Bragi argued. "Most in this hall know that he and Brokk are friends. I don't know how he escaped from his banishment to Midgard, but he is now roaming the realms freely, attacking other Aesir, and attempting to steal our most powerful and dangerous possession. We must capture him and find out what he knows."

Frigga shook her head. "Do you think Loki will be so easy to capture? He escaped from a heavily enchanted chamber with twelve Einherjar raising swords against him. And you say 'attacked,' he may say 'defended.' Aside from defying the All-Father's punishment, he hasn't been proven guilty of anything."

"Anything _new_," Bragi corrected. "Forgive me, my queen, but he has already been proven guilty of much."

"I have no idea what Loki is up to, and I am not in a frame of mind to imagine theories. But I must say this," Thor stated, glancing around the room at the various expressions of anger, confusion, discomfort, and worry. "I understand Vigdis said that Brokk said he was working with Loki. But the last I heard of Brokk was perhaps…sixty or seventy years ago, when he and Loki got into some trouble on Alfheim, and Loki escaped but Brokk did not, and Loki did not aid him. Loki was afraid Brokk would come after him if he got free." Loki hadn't volunteered the information, of course, but Thor had seen his haggard appearance as he'd slunk back to his chambers and pried the story out of him while he was still rattled and had his guard down.

"Loki and Brokk used to have extravagant fights…but they always made up in the end," Maeva pointed out.

The table then devolved into multiple arguments and shouting. Frigga sat at the head of the table watching and listening in silence, while Thor joined in and found himself arguing with whatever point was put to him, seeking to defend Loki but at the same time not truly believing him entirely innocent.

"How else would Loki know about the Felingard Forest attack? Or about Vigdis?" Huskol asked. "He must be in league with Brokk. And then perhaps he finally remembered who he was and began to feel guilt over his actions."

"How did _I_ know about the Felingard Forest attack and Vigids?" Jolgeir asked. "Do you believe _I_ am involved in these attacks? Perhaps someone told Loki, just as Loki told me."

"What if this is all some grand scheme?" Tyr asked, speaking up for the first time and causing the rest of the arguments to taper off. "Like what Prince Thor explained he tried to accomplish on Midgard. Loki could have told Jolgeir about the forest and Vigdis to distract us from his real goal all along: the tesseract. Vigdis had been dismissed, she had lost her usefulness as a spy. They lost nothing in giving us her name."

"But why would _Loki_ be one of their three demands if Loki is in league with them?" Thor demanded.

"A distraction," Tyr answered. "We haven't seen a single Frost Giant here. I don't believe they're invested in this. And why would Vanaheim want them to have the Ice Casket back, anyway? The Frost Giants attacked Vanaheim before they attacked Midgard. Perhaps this is solely about the tesseract, and everything else is a diversion."

"If this was all about Loki stealing the tesseract, for himself or Svartalfheim or the alliance against Asgard or whomever…he would have made a more impressive attempt, I think," Maeva said. "What he did lacked forethought. Loki never lacked forethought."

"We may not know all the answers, but we _know_ he tried to steal the tesseract. There is no avoiding that," Huskol said, glancing between Thor and Frigga, both of whom could tell there was more he wished to say but he knew he should not.

"You wish to say something, Geirmund? Please," Frigga offered, and all eyes turned to the supplies advisor, who had stood in the middle of Huskol's statement.

Geirmund bowed his head to her; there was a long silence before he managed to find his voice. "Prince Loki has often been accused of things based on assumption. It sounds like we are all making assumptions here, based on fragments of unrelated information that can be interpreted in more than one way."

The silence remained, and Geirmund remained standing. Thor thought he looked nervous. He was new to his position, and probably not used to speaking before such a group of people.

"But I came to this council for another reason entirely, I'm afraid," he continued after a moment.

"Go ahead," Frigga said, grateful for a change of subject. She'd called this council because she knew she must, but she hated these discussions of Loki as though he were merely a problem, a thing, rather than her son, and this one had certainly not brought them any greater understanding. And what she'd learned about Loki threatening Jolgeir, that she wished she could have never heard.

"Although Prince Loki's warning resulted in a quicker defense of the Felingard Forest, we still lost all three of the grain silos located in a farming area not far from there. We have nine more, but we have almost nothing left to harvest, and many of our fields have been destroyed. I fear they may be deliberately targeting our food supply."

"I'll assign guards to the remaining silos," Hergils said.

Geirmund nodded. "With you permission, Your Majesty, I believe I should return to Midgard to continue trade talks."

"Yes, do it. Do you need Thor to accompany you?"

"Unless he wishes it, no, I've already been introduced to the appropriate people."

"Good," Frigga said as Geirmund sat. "Does anyone have anything new to add?" she asked, slightly emphasizing the "new." "We will discuss Loki further later, once you've had a chance to think about what you've learned today."

"I will have a report prepared on our losses soon, Your Majesty. It was a victory in the end, but a very costly one, and we are running into logistical problems as well. We should discuss it with the full council," Tyr said.

Frigga nodded; Huskol looked down at the one Einherjar at the table who had not yet made the reason for his presence clear.

"Your Majesty," he said, standing, his golden orange cape swirling around him as he approached the queen. "I led the inspection of the observatory and its surroundings following the incursion there. We swept a wide area, including the bridge. We found this there, by the primary gate, but only this afternoon, in our second sweep."

Frigga took the piece of bright red fabric from him. He returned to his seat while she turned the fabric between her fingers and brushed a thumb over it. It stirred something in her, though she could not place it. "A whisper of magic surrounds this. But it is not of Asgard. The material is…strange. Synthetic, not natural. Something of Midgard?" She handed it to Thor.

"It could be," he said, examining it as his mother had, but far less familiar with cloth types. "They use such odd materials. But you think it came from something Loki wore? Since he turned ten I have never worn green and he has never worn red. I don't think he would wear this. And why would he be on the bridge? There's nothing there now. Since the war began we haven't even guarded it."

"Even though it no longer pulses with energy, the bridge may remain a strong focal point of magic. And perhaps he wasn't alone," Maeva said.

"No one ever saw him with anyone else. But it's true some of the Einherjar in the temporary observatory believed two culprits were present. I judged that this was simply because Loki is well-trained," Huskol said.

"I saw a flash," Thor suddenly said, interrupting someone else's response. "To the south, as I was flying over to fight the Dark Elves and the Vanir. I looked, but I saw nothing else, so I continued on. It could have been in the area of the bridge."

"We'll return the guard. We'll double it," Hergils said. "Maeva, perhaps you can assist as well," he added, and Maeva nodded.

"I don't want him harmed. We must avoid assumptions," Frigga said, nodding toward Geirmund.

The meeting broke up a few minutes later, and the Einherjar who had served now began to clear the table. Thor realized they had taken over this duty because the kitchen workers were no longer trusted around such discussions. He exchanged a few quick words with Jolgeir, whom Huskol was already helping out of the hall, and arranged to go speak with him again tomorrow morning, then with his mother, then worked his way down the table past others who wanted a moment with him, to Hogun whose legs he learned were yet stronger, and finally to Geirmund.

"Thank you for defending Loki, Geirmund. He has few friends here, and I didn't know you were among them. I appreciate your reminder. My brother is…disturbed, about many things, and…" He trailed off. It used to be easy to defend Loki. It had gotten harder and harder.

"It's nothing. I just…I know sometimes people assume things about Loki, and…well. Do you wish to accompany me to Midgard?"

"No. I wish to sleep for the next month. But…will you pass a message for me?"

"Of course."

"Tell Tony Stark, or Pepper Potts, or I suppose the voice in the walls called Jarvis, tell them that Tony's assistance was greatly appreciated, but there's no longer any need for him to continue the searches we discussed."

From Geirmund's expression accompanying his agreement, it was clear he realized exactly what – or rather who – Tony had been searching for, but he was discrete enough not to comment on it. Geirmund took his leave, and Thor began the long walk around to the palace's private wing and his own chambers, where he feared that despite how much his body longed to rest, his mind would not permit it.

/

* * *

/

Jane lay on her stomach in bed, propped up on her elbows. She'd taken a nap in the afternoon, exhausted from the experience on the bridge, but naps had long been a double-edged sword for her. Helpful in the moment, murder at night. So now it approached midnight and she still couldn't sleep, didn't even feel tired, her whole sleep schedule thrown off. She'd lain in bed for nearly an hour staring at the stars Tony's whoever-exactly-she-was Pepper had sent, before giving up and fishing out the mythology book again.

She wasn't going to read about Loki killing Baldur, much less Loki's punishment for killing Baldur – _that_ wasn't exactly going to help her sleep. Instead, she'd been recalling that passage that first introduced Loki in the _Prose Edda_, that said something about how Loki often got people into trouble, but at other times got them _out_ of trouble with his cleverness. She hadn't seen that Loki before, but maybe that was the brother Thor loved. And maybe that person was also found in mythology.

She found herself reading a summary of a strange story – _they're all strange,_ she reminded herself, and she supposed she should be used to that by now – about a long journey Loki had taken with Odin and someone named Hoenir, whom Jane didn't bother to look up. They killed an ox to eat – Jane rolled her eyes, for she didn't know much about oxen except that they were big, and she figured, yes, the Aesir must all have enormous appetites like Thor – but the meat stayed raw even though they cooked it. A giant eagle then told them that the meat wouldn't cook unless they gave some of it to the eagle. The Aesir agreed, but then the eagle gobbled up half the ox. Loki went into a rage and hit the eagle with a large stick. Jane drew in a shaky breath, because Loki going into a rage and lashing out sounded familiar.

The eagle got its revenge, though, carrying Loki away, still holding onto the stick, and dragging him over the ground so that his feet got cut up by stones and trees and he thought his arms would be wrenched from their sockets. _"He called out, begging the eagle for mercy, but the bird answered that Loki would not be saved unless he swore an oath that he would find a way to lure Idunn, with her apples, out of Asgard."*_ Loki agreed and was released, then kept his oath, luring Idunn away with some apples. A giant – _a Frost Giant?_ Jane wondered – named Thjazi, in the shape of an eagle, came and carried Idunn away. The Aesir began to grow old and gray without their apples – Jane remembered then that these magical apples were supposed to be what gave the gods their near immortality – and they realized Idunn had last been seen with Loki, so they captured him and threatened to torture or kill him until, in fear, he promised to retrieve Idunn and her apples. Loki took a falcon's shape, found where Idunn had been taken, turned Idunn into the shape of a nut, and carried her off while Thjazi chased them as an eagle. In the end Loki made it back safely with Idunn, and Thjazi was killed by the rest of the Aesir.

Jane stared blankly in the direction of her cardboard-covered window, trying to find some moral or deeper meaning in the story. Maybe Darcy, with her social science bent, could have done it. She'd hoped for a happy story, and while this one beat the one about Baldur and the gruesome death of Loki's sons, happy it was not, even if Loki more or less saved the day in the end. Jane just thought it was sad. Abstracting away from people turning into eagles and falcons and nuts, which Jane didn't imagine she could ever quite wrap her head around, someone else had picked a fight and Loki had taken a metaphorical swing, and then was beaten until he agreed to commit a crime. He committed that crime for the first person, then another group of people threatened to torture him unless he found a way to undo his crime, which he did, risking his life again in the process.

Bad decisions and things spinning out of control.

Jane rolled over and sat up. She still wasn't tired, and when tiredness finally hit, she didn't want to fall asleep with _this_ on her mind. _The rose book,_ she thought, the one that had, by some extremely fortuitous stroke of good luck, been left behind in her room. It made her feel close to her mother, and she enjoyed the scientific side of it, hybridization and plant genetics. And it was nice to look at something beautiful and alive – on paper at least – every night when she went to bed. She'd already read about one rose tonight, but there was no reason she couldn't keep going.

Still, she found herself distracted, and while reading about a rose hybridized in Belgium, out of the blue a number came to her. The number 38. With a deep breath, she put aside the rose book for the mythology book underneath it.

* * *

/

***Citation:** Sturluson, S. (2005). _The Prose Edda._ (J. L. Byock, Trans.). New York: Penguin Group. (Original work published approximately 1220).

_To "Jacquelinelittle" - please comment/critique/question as much as you like! It wasn't my intent to suggest otherwise, only to let all unregistered users know that I'm normally not able to_ answer_ questions in the text of a chapter, even though I have done so a few times. I do it on rare occasion when space permits or the question seems to be a common one._

_Did you all see the Joss Whedon quote which would seem to say Loki's not in Avengers 2? I'm sad but not all that surprised. He can't be the villain again, but it could be interesting to see him as a reluctant "Good Guy" - but maybe that ground is covered in Thor 2. Thank goodness for fanfiction to remedy any future lack of Loki!_

_On to previews from Ch. 55, "Stories":_ _Loki wakes up in - what else? - a bad mood, and more of his world is carved away from him; Loki considers which is worse - starvation or having breakfast with Jane; Jane tries to lay some ground rules...and we'll just see how Loki responds to that; Loki tells a story; Jane tells a story; Loki remembers something from long ago but is bothered by his reaction to it._

_And excerpt (Loki speaking first):_

"No, no. You've had your chance to speak; I'll take mine now. You wish to hear about Asgard, about the rest of the Nine, about what I was doing before your great-great-grandfather's great-great-grandfather was born? I understand that. I've always been full of curiosity myself. I'll tell you a story, then. But not my story, because that's not really what you want to hear, is it? No, you want _his_ story. So that's what I shall give you. A story about Thor. Would you like that?"

Jane listened with a sinking heart. His expression was congenial, but his tone was full of menace._ What did you expect, Jane? You knew this wasn't going to be easy._ "I strongly suspect I'm not going to like it, but if you want to tell me, then I'm willing to listen."

"Good," he said with a curt nod. "And I'll swear to you now, every single word of this story will be the unadulterated truth."

_Thanks for reading, thanks for reviewing, thanks for "favoriting" and "following" - I don't think I've ever remembered to mention that; I appreciate all of it. Thanks for your enthusiasm. Congrats to "igelheim" for guessing there might be a piece of Big Red floating around Asgard now._


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